ptatmift^Uia? 



JK:JHitUrJM) 




Class __^y^_lA 
Book 



Copyright ]^°_ 



COPyPIGHT DEPOSIT. 



f ttttifng ti^e l^av 



Hi^tj. 3ar^ SSltU^t^^ Books 



COME YE APART. 
DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK. 
/^FINDING THE WAY. 

GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS. 

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 

PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS. 

SILENT TIMES. 

STRENGTH AND BEAUTY. 

THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 

THE EVERY DAY OF LIFE. 

THE GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER. 

THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

THE LESSON OF LOVE. 

THE MINISTRY OF COMFORT. 

THE STORY OF A BUSY LIFE. 

THE UPPER CURRENTS. 

THINGS TO LIVE FOR. 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS. 



Booklets 



A GENTLE HEART. 

BY THE STILL WATERS. 

GIRLS; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 

HOW? WHEN? WHERE? 

IN PERFECT PEACE. 

LOVING MY NEIGHBOUR. 

MARY OF BETHANY. 

SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. 

SUMMER GATHERING. 

THE BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS. 

THE FACE OF THE MASTER. 

THE INNER LIFE. 

THE MARRIAGE ALTAR. 

THE SECRET OF GLADNESS. 

THE TRANSFIGURED LIFE. 

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW. 

UNTO THE HILLS. 

YOUNG MEN; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 






dFmbing tj^e Wnv 



BY 



J. E. MILLEE, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF "silent TIMES," ''UPPER CURRENTS," 
"lessons of love," "in perfect PEACE," ETC. 



^' I go to prove my soul ; 
I see my way as birds their trackless path, 
I shall arrive ! 

In good time, in His good time, I shall arrive. 
He guides me and the bird. In his good tiTne.'" 

— Robert Browning, 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 






:;3ri5trti~ ■»- .-!>«: 



UBf?affY<»fOOWeRESS 

Two «>nt>f« Rewrtved 
SEP 17 1904 

Oooyrfffht Emrv 

CLASS t^ XXo. No. 

COPY B 



Copyright, 1904., hy T, F. Crowe// c^ Co. 



Published, September, 1904 



PREFACE 



JL HE little books of this " Silent Times '''' series 
have been a great comfort to the author in that 
they have proved helpful to many people in all 
parts of the world. Letters come continually 
from those who have been strengthened or en- 
couraged by them. This new volume is sent 
out in the hope that it^ too^ may carry cheer 
and inspiration to those who may read it. The 
sweetest joy of earth comes from the privilege of 
being used by the Master in helping others to 
live a little more hopefully^ victoriously and 

usefully. 

J. R. M. 

Philadelphia, U. S. A. 



TITLES OF CHAPTERS 



I. 

II. 
III. 
lY. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 



Finding the Wat 

Learning God's Will 

God's Silences to Us 

Letting God In 

The Sympathy of Christ 

The Only Bond 

The Master at Prayer 

The Master on the Beach 

In the Love of God 

The Abundant Life 

We Are Able 

''To Each One His Work" 

''One Thing I Do" 

"At Thy Word, I Will" 

The Duty of Pleasing Others 



Paae 



1 

13 

27 

39 

51 

61 

73 

85 

99 

109 

121 

131 

145 

159 

169 



The Privilege of Suffering Wrongfully 181 

The Duty Waiting Without 193 

The Thanksgiving Habit 205 

"Because Ye Are Strong 219 

The Glasses You Wear 229 

The Fault of Over-Sensitiveness 239 

As if We Did Not 251 

Making a Good Name 261 

Letting Things Run Down 273 



jifintiins tl^e Wav 



[1] 



^ Among so many, can he caret 
Can special love he everywhere? ^^ 
I ashed. *^My soul bethought of this,- 
In just that very place of his 
Where he hath put and keepeth you 
God hath no other thing to do J' 



[2] 



CHAPTER FIRST 




OES God condescend to 
show people the way 
through this world? He 
guides suns and planets in 
their orbits, so that they 
never wander from their 
course. He directs them so carefully, so 
accurately, that in all the vast universe, with 
its millions of worlds and systems of worlds, 
there is absolute precision in all their move- 
ments, with no deviation, age after age. No 
star is ever too fast or too slow. No planet 
ever leaves its orbit. The sun is never late 
in rising. God has marked out paths for the 
worlds, and he causes them to move in these 
paths. 

But does he interest himself in anything so 
small as the individual lives of men.'^ Or, if 
he does give direction to the careers of great 
men who carry important destinies in their 
[3] 



finUn^ ti^e Wai^ 



hands and are sent on missions of far-reach- 
ing responsibility, does he give thought to 
the daily paths of each one of the millions of 
his children? Does he show a little child the 
road through the tangles? Does he guide a 
wandering one home? There is no doubt 
about the teaching of the Bible on this sub- 
ject. For example, we are told that God is 
our Father. What are the qualities of father- 
hood? What is human fatherhood? Is there 
anything in the lives of children so small that 
their father is not interested in it? Is God, 
then, less kind than human parents? Brown- 
ing puts the question thus: 

Do I find love so full in my nature, God's ultimate gift. 
That I doubt his own love can compete with it f 
Here, the parts shift f 

Here, the creature surpass the Creator — the end, what 
began f 

Think, too, of the interest of Christ in us, 
as proved by what he has done for us. He 
came to earth and endured our mortal life, 
that he might learn the way by experience. 
[4] 



« 



^ffnDing ti^e l^av 



To us the path of each day is always new — 
we have not passed this way heretofore and 
we cannot tell what any hour may bring to us. 
But he knows all the way, for he went over 
every inch of it. There is no human experi- 
ence which Christ does not understand. No 
suffering can be ours which he did not feel. 
No wrong can hurt us, but he was hurt far 
more sorely. Is the burden heavy ? His bur- 
den was infinitely heavier, for he took our 
infirmities and bore our sicknesses, and bowed 
beneath the load of our sins. There is no 
phase of struggle, of suffering, of pain, of 
temptation, or of joy, with which he is 
unfamiliar. And knowing thus the way, 
from having sought it out for himself, he is 
able to guide us in it. 

We have a right, therefore, to make the 
prayer: "Cause me to know the way wherein 
I should walk." Our prayer will be answered, 
too. There will be a hand extended to guide 
us, to open the path for us, and to help us over 
the hard pinches of the road. 
But do we really need guidance.'^ Are we not 
[5] 



finding tl^e Wa^ 



wise enough to decide what course it is best 
for us to take? Can we not find our own 
way in this world? Some people think they 
can, and they disdain to turn even to God for 
direction. They think they can get along 
without him, so they make no prayer for direc- 
tion, but follow the light of their own wis- 
dom. No wonder they never find the way 
home. There is a story of a tourist in the 
Alps, who refused a guide. He said he could 
find the way himself. So he went out alone 
in the morning, but he never came back. Life 
in this world is far more perilous than moun- 
tain climbing. 

There are particular times, also, when we 
need to make the prayer for direction with 
special earnestness. There are times when 
every star seems to have gone out, and when 
clouds and darkness appear to have gathered 
about us, hiding every waymark, so that we 
cannot see any way out of the gloom and 
perplexity. We need then to have God's di- 
rection, or we shall perish. In the darkest 
hour of Christ's life, when he could not see 
[6] 



fmDing ti^e Wav 



even his Father's face, and cried out like one 
forsaken, he still kept his faith in God firm 
and strong. It was still, "My God, my God." 
But while there are times when we need guid- 
ance in an unusual way, there is no day in all 
our brightest year when we do not need it, 
when we dare to go forward one step without 
it. The day we do not seek and obtain God's 
leading will be a day of disaster for us. The 
day we go forth without prayer for divine 
blessing, when we do not lay our hand in 
Christ's as we go out into the great world, is 
a day of peril for us. 

Indeed, we often need the divine guidance 
the most when we think we do not need it at 
all. On the other hand, it is often true that 
the experiences we dread, in which we seem 
to be left without help, when the darkness ap- 
pears most dense about us and we cannot see 
the way, even a step, before us, are really full- 
est of God. We cry out then for deliverance, 
not knowing that it is God who is leading us 
into the shadows. It is when the sun goes 
down that we see the stars. Ofttimes it is 
[7] 



ifintimg t]^e Wav 



when the hght of human love is quenched 
that the face of Christ is first really revealed, 
or revealed as never before. We cry, "Show 
me the way," thinking that we have lost the 
way, and crying to be led back into it, when 
lo! the clouds part and we see Christ close 
beside us, and know that he has been beside 
us all the time. 

^^And that thou sayest, 'Go/ 
Our hearts are glad; for he is still thy friend, 
And best loved of all, whom thou dost send 
The farthest from thee: this thy servants know. 
Ohj send by whom thou wilt, for they are blest 
Who go thine errands. Not upon thy breast 
We learn thy secrets. Long beside thy tomb 
We weptj and lingered in the garden gloom; 
And oft we sought thee in thy house of prayer 
And in the desert, yet thou wast not there: 
But as we journeyed sadly through a place 
Obscure and mean, we lighted on the trace 
Of thy fresh footprints, and a whisper clear 
Fell on our spirits — thou thyself wast near; 
And from thy servants^ hearts thy name adored 
Brake forth in fire; we said, ^ It is the Lord.* " 

[8] 



finning tl^e Wav 



God's way does not always lie in the sun- 
shine; sometimes it runs into deep glooms. 
We are not always out of the way when we 
find ourselves facing obstacles and difficulties. 
When we cannot see where we are going, we 
may be in the way everlasting, because God 
is guiding us. He leads us away many a time 
from the path we would have taken. Always 
he leads us away from whatever is wrong. 
God's way is a way of holiness, a white, clean 
way. It is the road to heaven. 
When we pray for guidance we must sur- 
render our will to God. If we ask him to 
guide us, we must let him do it ; we must yield 
our own preference and accept his. For ex- 
ample, we think we should always be active in 
some kind of service for our Master. Then 
one day we are called into a sick room and 
have to stay there for a month. We think the 
time is lost, because in it we have done no 
work, helped no one, relieved no distress, 
spoken no word of cheer or comfort. What is 
the compensation for this loss of time in doing 
good, this missing of opportunities for serv- 
[9] 



ifmDing tl^e Wav 



ing others? We cannot tell, but we know 
at least that God's will does not call us always 
to activity; sometimes they serve best "who 
only stand and wait." We are in this world 
not only to do a great deal of good, but also 
to grow into the likeness of Christ. If then in 
any certain weeks we are not permitted to 
do any kindnesses, but if, meanwhile, we have 
been growing a little more patient, gentle, 
thoughtful, humble, if the peace of our hearts 
has become a little deeper, quieter, sweeter, 
the time has not been lost. 
Always when we pray to be guided we must 
take God's way wherever it may lead us; we 
must let God decide whether we shall work 
or rest. One writes: "No time of seeming 
inactivity is laid upon you by God without 
a just reason. It is God calling upon you 
to do his business by ripening in quiet all 
your powers for some high sphere of activity 
which is about to be opened to you." We are 
doing God's work not only when we are press- 
ing forward in eager haste to accomplish 
some achievement for him, but quite as much 
[10] 



^(nDfng ti^e 3^at 



when we are keeping still and allowing God 
to work in us, enriching and beautifying our 
lives. 

The way of God which he would make us 
know is always the way of his will. The one 
business of life is to learn to do that will. We 
say it lightly in our prayers, "Thy will be 
done on earth, as it is in heaven." If our 
prayer is answered our whole life will be 
drawn into the divine way. What effect, for 
example, will God's way have on our grudges, 
our unbrotherly feelings, our jealousies, our 
resentments, our selfishnesses? They must all 
come into tune with the law of love. So in 
all life. The way on which God guides us is 
a way of holiness. It is an ever-ascending 
way, for its terminal is heaven. It is a prayer, 
therefore, that we must make continually. 
We must always keep climbing upward. No 
matter how good you are to-day, you should 
be somewhat better to-morrow. 
All of us know the way better than we follow 
it. None of us are as good as our ideals. 
Knowing the way is not enough — we must 

[11] 



ifinntng tl^e Wav 



walk in it. "If ye know these things,'^ said 
the Master, "happy are ye if ye do them.'' 
We must remember, too, that the divine guid- 
ance is not merely for the spiritual part of 
our life — for Sundays, for religious exercises 
— ^it is for the week-days as well, and for all 
the common paths. Our prayer is that the 
will of God may be done on earth as it is in 
heaven. We are to follow the laws of heaven 
in our earthly affairs, in our business, in our 
social life, in our friendships, in all of our 
conduct. 

We need never doubt that God's way leads 
always to the best things, to the truest and to 
the most real good. Let no one ever think 
that the way of the Lord is a mistake, however 
disappointing to our hopes and schemes it 
may be. One day we shall know that every 
divine leading, whatever it may have cost us 
to follow it, is wise and good. When we 
insist on our own way instead of God's, we 
are always making a mistake, the end of which 
will be sorrow and hurt. 



[12] 



Uatnin^ mn'^ Will 



[13] 



I 



/ lie where I have always lain, 

God smiles as he has always smiled; 

Ere suns and moons could wax and ivane, 
Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled 

The heavens, God thought on me his child; 

Ordained a life for me, arrayed 

Its circumstances every one 

To the minutest. 

— Robert BROwrNiNG. 



[14] 



CHAPTER SECOND 



Jlearning dPon'js mil 




E talk much about being 
led. If we are not led by 
one who knows the way, 
we never can get home, for 
we never can find the way 
ourselves. How are we 
led? How can we know what the divine lead- 
ing is? We cannot hear God speaking to us, 
nor can we see him going before us to show us 
the way. How then can we learn what his 
will is for us ? How can we have him show us 
the way.? 

For one thing, we are quite sure that God 
desires to lead us. His guidance includes not 
only our daily steps, but also the shaping 
of our circumstances and affairs. We cannot 
be thankful enough that our lives are in God's 
hands, for we never could care for them our- 
selves. One writes : 

[15] 



finning tl^e Wai^ 



^^ I would not dare, though it were offered me, 
To plan my lot for but a single day, 
So sure am I that all my life would be 

Marked with sad blots in token of my sway.'' ' 

There is no chance in this world. Every drop 
of water in the wild waves, in the most terrific 
storm is controlled by law, and God is back of 
the law. In these days, with their wonderful 
advance in science, some good people are ask- 
ing if there is any use in praying, for ex- 
ample, for the sick, for favorable weather, 
for the safety of the ship that bears loved 
ones of theirs on the sea, or for the staying of 
the epidemic. It seems to them that all things 
are under fixed laws with which no prayer can 
interfere. How then can God lead each one 
of his children in any ways save according 
to the fixed and unalterable laws of the uni- 
verse? We need not try to answer this ques- 
tion, but we may say that God would not be 
God if he were in such bondage to the laws of 
his own world that he could not hear the cry 
of a child for help, and answer it, or if he 
[16] 



leatntng <5oh'^ Will 

could not open a way for you out t)f the 
greatest difficulties. 

So we need not vex ourselves with the ques- 
tion, how God can lead us and direct our 
paths. We may leave that to him, for he is 
infinitely greater than all the things he has 
made. He is able to ward off dangers, that 
none of them can touch us. This is God's 
world and God is our Father. His name is 
love, which means that love is the essential 
quality of his character. Do you think since 
God's power is so great, and his law so unalter- 
able, that his love has no liberty of action.'^ 
Believe it not. God can do what his heart 
longs to do for us. He can lead us in the way 
in which he would have us go. 

'^ import deep as life is, deep as time 
There is a Something sacred and sublime 
Moving behind the worlds, beyond our ken, 
Weighing the stars, weighing the deeds of men. 

" Take heart, soul of sorrow, and bt strong; 
There is One greater than the whole world's wrong. 
Be hushed before the high, benignant Power 
That goes untarrying to the reckoning hour,** 
[17] 



I 



fintitng tl^e Wa^ 



God's leading, however, does not remove the 
necessity for thought and effort on our part. 
He does not lead us by compulsion, without 
choice or exertion of our own. We have some- 
thing to do with the working out of the will 
of God for ourselves. God is never to be left 
out of anything; he is always to be con- 
sulted. We pray, "Thy will be done on earth 
as it is in heaven," but it is we who must do 
this will — God will not coerce us into doing 
it, nor will he do it for us. We are to take 
God's way instead of our own, but his will 
must work through our wills. Our wills are 
not to be crushed, broken, as sometimes we 
are told — they are to be merged in Christ's, 
voluntarily brought into accord with his will, 
so that we shall do gladly and heartily what 
he wills for us to do. "Our wills are ours to 
make them thine." God never does anything 
for us that we can do for ourselves. He has 
given us brains, and he does not mean to think 
for us. He has given us judgment, and we 
are to decide matters for ourselves. He does 
not carry us along — ^he leads us through our 
[18] 



Jlearning (KoD'js Will 

own willingness, our obedience, our aspira- 
tions, our choices, our ventures of faith. 
God's leading includes divine providence. 
There are many examples of this in the Bible, 
but the story of Joseph is one of the plainest 
and most remarkable. In his youth, Joseph 
was cruelly sinned against. The envy of his 
brothers tore him away from his home, and we 
see him carried off as a slave to a strange 
land. " Why did not God interfere and pre- 
vent this crime? He could have done it, if 
he is God. Did he not love Joseph.^ Yes. 
Why, then, did he permit such terrible wrong 
to be done to this gentle boy.? Just because 
he loved him. 

Edward Everett Hale, in a story, fancies that 
Joseph had escaped during his first night with 
the caravan and was starting homeward. 
Then a yellow dog barked and aroused his 
keepers, who followed him and brought him 
back. Could not God have kept the dog from 
barking and thus have let the boy get home 
to his father? Would not that have been the 
truest kindness? 

[19] 



jffinDing tl^e Wav 



But the writer of the story shows us what 
would have been the consequences of Joseph's 
escaping that night. A number of years 
later, when the famine came on, there would 
have been no storehouses filled with food, and 
Egypt would have been destroyed. The 
Hebrews in Canaan would have perished, 
there would have been no chosen family, the 
history of the ancient world would have been 
changed and civilization would have been set 
back centuries — all because a yellow dog was 
kept from barking and a cruelly wronged 
boy was in kindness allowed to escape and 
get home. So we see it was in wise, far-seeing 
love that God did not interfere to save this 
Hebrew lad from the wickedness of his 
brothers. He used the evil of men to lead 
Joseph through all his hard training and dis- 
cipline, to prepare him for the great work he 
was to do when he became a man. 
If we would be led by God we must submit 
to his providences, when they clearly interpret 
his will. Not always, however, are hindrances 
meant to hinder; often they are meant to be 
[20] 



Leatning d^oti'js mil 

overcome, in order that in the overcoming we 
may grow strong. But when there are obsta- 
cles which cannot be removed, they are to be 
accepted as the way marks of divine guidance. 
Whatever in our lot is inevitable we must 
regard as indicative of God's will for us, show- 
ing us gates closed against us, and other 
gates opening out upon ways in which we must 
walk. 

How we may interpret Providence and decide 
in all cases what the will of God for us is, are 
questions which many find it hard to answer. 
Some people have a habit of opening the 
Bible at random when they are trying to 
decide some important question of duty, and 
then taking the first word they come upon 
as the answer to their question. But this 
is not a sane or scriptural way of getting 
divine guidance. Bible texts are not meant 
to be used as dice in playing games of 
chance. 

If we would learn what God's will for us in 

life's common affairs is, we should always 

keep near to Christ, so near that we can speak 

[21] 



finDing ti^e 3^at 



to him any moment, ask him any question, 
and let our hand rest in his. He always finds 
some way of making his will known to those 
who thus trust him and look to him for 
direction. 

Then if we would have divine guidance, we 
must be willing to accept it when it comes 
to us. We must be wilhng to be led, and 
must be ready to go wherever our Lord would 
have us go. Ofttimes the reason we do not 
get guidance is because we are not willing to 
take God's way when we know it. Elizabeth 
Fry at the age of sixty-five, said that from 
the time her heart was touched by the divine 
Spirit, when she was seventeen, she had never 
awakened from sleep, in sickness or in health, 
but that her first waking thought was, how 
best she might serve her Lord. She sought 
always to be led by him in paths of service of 
his own choosing. The outcome of such de- 
votion to the divine will was a life full of 
beautiful ministry. The prisons of all the 
civlized world felt the impress of her noble 
life. A young girl who will thus seek the 
[22] 



learning mti'^ Will 

divine guidance, and promptly and unques- 
tioningly accept it, cannot know to what 
beauty of character and what splendor of use- 
fulness she will be led in the end. 
We are to pray to be divinely led not only in 
large matters, but in the smallest — every hour, 
every moment. "Order my steps," is a prayer 
in one of the Psalms. How it would change 
all life for us if we would continually pray 
thus! You will have some hard thing to do 
to-morrow, an uncongenial and distasteful 
task. You will not want to do it. But It 
is God's will and that makes it a radiant deed, 
like holiest service of angel before God's 
throne. You will have to endure something 
hard or humiliating, to-morrow — some unjust 
treatment, some unkindness. Your nature 
will revolt. "I cannot do that," you will say. 
But it is God's will that you should endure 
it, and endure it sweetly, patiently, songfuUy, 
and that changes it for you — it is a glorious 
thing to do God's will. 

We will always find God's will for us by 

always doing the next thing. No matter how 

[23] 



ifinDtng tl^e Wav 



small it is, it will take us a step forward in 
God's way. Doing his will in little things 
will show us other steps to take and thus will 
lead us on till all the way has been passed 
over. The word of God is said to be a lamp 
unto our feet — not a great sun shining high 
in the heavens, illumining a hemisphere, but 
a little lantern that we may carry in our hand 
and hold so that its light shall fall on the bit 
of road on which we are walking. It will 
not lighten a whole mile for us at a time, but 
it will always make the next step clear, and 
as we take that, the next one, and so on, until 
all the miles of our journey have been shown 
to us. 

If only we will do the will of God, as it is made 
known to us, little by little, moment by 
moment, we shall be led step by step, and at 
last shall reach home. 

'' Master J point thou out the way, 

Nor suffer thou our steps to stray; 

Then in the path that leads to-day 

We follow thee. 

[24] 



JLeamtng cBoti'js Will 



' Thou hast passed on before our face ; 
Thy footsteps on the way we trace ; 
keep us, aid us by thy grace; 
We follow thee/^ 



[25] 



(5oh'^ ^ilmct^ to m 



[27] 



*'/ will he silent in my soul, 
Since God has girt me round 

With his own Silences, in which 
There is no space for Sound. 

Only his voice, perchance, may drop 
Like dew upon the ground. 

*^I will he silent, and will lean 

Myself into all space. 
Love, didst thou think in all this life 

That thou couldst touch my face f 
Nay, for God hade that I should turn 

Unto himself for space. ^' 



[28] 



CHAPTER THIRD 



ctDJon'^ ^tlence0 to 00 




NE of the most remarkable 
incidents in the Gospels is 
that in which^ to a poor 
woman's cries for help, 
Jesus answered not a word. 
He kept his face turned 
away, and seemed to treat the suppliant with 
cold indifference. Yet he was not indifferent. 
In his heart was warm compassion for her, and 
in the end he gave her far more than she 
had asked. 

There are times when God seems to be silent 
to us. To our earnest supplications he answers 
not a word. We are told to ask and we shall 
receive, to seek and we shall find, to knock 
and it shall be opened unto us. Yet there 
come times when, though we ask most implor- 
ingly, we seem not to receive; when, though 
we seek with intensest earnestness, we seem not 
to find; when, though we knock until our 
[29] 



jIfinDtng ti^e l^at 



hands are bruised and bleeding, there seems 
to be no opening of the door. Sometimes the 
heavens appear to be brass above us as we cry. 
Is there anywhere an ear to hear, or a heart 
to feel sympathy with us in our need? 
Nothing else is so awful as the silence of God. 
It is a pathetic prayer in which a psalm - 
writer pleads, "Be not silent to me; lest I 
become like them that go down into the pit.'^ 
Anything from God is better than that he be 
silent to us. It would be a sad, dreary, lonely 
world if the atheist's creed were true, that 
there is no God^ that there is no ear to hear 
prayer, that no voice of answering love or 
comfort or help ever comes out of the heavens 
to us. 

Do prayers of faith ever remain really un- 
answered? There are prayers which are 
answered, although we do not know it, think- 
ing them still unanswered. The answer is not 
recognized when it comes ; the blessing comes 
and is not perceived. This is true especially 
of many spiritual blessings which we seek. 
We ask for holiness, yet as the days pass it 
[30] 



d^oti'^ ^(lencej{ to m 

does not seem to us that we are growing In 
holiness. Yet, perhaps, all the while our 
spirit is imperceptibly, unconsciously imbib- 
ing more and more of the mind of Christ, 
and we are being changed into his image. We 
expect the answer in a certain way — in a 
manifestation which we cannot mistake, while 
it comes to us silently, as the dew comes upon 
the drooping flowers and the withering leaves. 
But, like the flowers and the leaves, our souls 
are refreshed and our life is renewed. 
We put our cares into God's hands, with a 
prayer that he will free us from the load. But 
the cares do not seem to become any less. We 
think there has been no answer to our prayer. 
Yet all the while an unseen hand has been 
shaping, adjusting, disentangling the com- 
plex aff*airs of our life, and preparing a 
blessing for us out of them all. We are not 
conscious of it, but our prayer has been receiv- 
ing continual answer. Like the tapestry 
weavers, we have not seen the unfolding of the 
pattern as we have wrought away in the dark- 
ness, and yet on the other side, where God's 
[31] 



jfinDing ti^e Wai^ 



eye sees, it has been coming out in beauty. 
Some day we shall know that many prayers 
we now think unanswered have really been 
most graciously answered. 
There are prayers, however, which are not 
answered. For example, we ask God to lift 
away our burden. He hears our pleading 
and his heart is warm with love; yet, to do 
this would be to rob us of blessings which can 
come to us only through the bearing of the 
burden. There are mistaken notions current 
among good people about the way God helps. 
Some think that whenever they have a little 
trouble, a bit of hard path to walk over, a 
load to carry, a sorrow to meet, a trial of 
any kind, all they have to do is to call upon 
God and he will take away that which is hard, 
or prevent that which impends, freeing them 
altogether from the trial. But this is not 
God's usual way. His purpose concerning 
us is not to make things easy for us, but rather 
to make something of us. So when we ask 
him to save us from our care, to take the 
struggle out of our life, to make the path 
[32] 



(15on'^ ^tlencejs to m 

mossy for our feet, to lift off the heavy load, 
he simply does not do it. It really would be 
most unkind and unloving in him to do so. 
It would be giving us an easier path to-day 
instead of a mountain vision to-morrow. 
Therefore, prayers of this kind go unan- 
swered. We must carry the burden ourselves. 
We must climb the steep path to stand on the 
radiant peak. God wants us to learn life's 
lessons, and to do this we must be left to work 
out the problems for ourselves. 
There are rich blessings that we can get only 
through sorrow. It would be a short-sighted 
love, therefore, that would heed our cries for 
deliverance and spare us from sorrow because 
we desired it, thus depriving us of blessings 
which God intends to send to us in the sor- 
row, and which can come to us in no other 
way. 

*'If loving hearts were never lonely , 

If all things wished might always he, 
Accepting what they looked for only, 
They might he glad, hut not in thee, 
[33] 



jfffnDinij ti^e Wav 



" We need as much the cross we bear 
• As air we breathe, as light we see; 
It draws us to thy side in prayer, 
It bends us to our strength in thee,^' 

A child may indolently shrink from the study, 
the regular hours, the routine, the tasks and 
drudgery and discipline of the school, and 
beg the parent to let him stay at home and 
have an easy time. But what would you think 
of the father who would weakly grant the 
child's request, releasing him from the tasks 
that irk him so? And is God less wisely kind 
than our human fathers ? He will not answer 
prayers which ask that we may be freed from 
duty, from work, from struggle, since it is 
by these very things alone that we can grow. 
The only true answer to such prayers is the 
withholding of what we ask. 
A man and his wife were talking together and 
this scrap of their conversation was overheard : 
"I could make a good living," said the man, 
"yes, more than a good living, by continuing 
to paint the sort of trash I've been painting 
all summer." 

[34] 



(Boti'^ ^(lencejs to m 



a 



Yes," said the woman, looking at him 
proudly, "but I want my husband to live up 
to his best. I would live in a garret, on a 
crust, cheerfully, to help him do it." 
That is the way God would have us live, so as 
to make the best of our life. When we pray 
for help to live easily and not up to our 
loftiest reaches of attainment and achieve- 
ment, God will be silent to our request. He 
would not be our wise and loving Father, if 
he treated such requests differently. 
There are selfish prayers, too, which go un- 
answered. "There are others." Human 
lives are tied up together in relations. It is 
not enough that any of us shall think only 
of himself and his own things. Thoughts of 
others must intertwine with thoughts for our- 
selves. Something which might be good for 
us, if we were the only person, it may not be 
wise to grant because it might not be for the 
comfort and good of others. It might work 
them hurt, or at least add to their burdens. 
It is possible to overlook this in our prayers, 
and to press our interests and desires to the 
[35] 



finDing ti^e Wav 



harming of our neighbor. God's eye takes 
in all his children, and he plans for the truest 
and best good of each one of them, even the 
least. Our selfish prayers, which, if granted, 
would work to the injury of others, he will 
not answer. 

There is yet another class of prayers which 
appear to be unanswered, but whose answers 
are only delayed for wise reasons. Perhaps 
we are not able at the time to receive the 
things we ask for. A child in one of the 
lower grades in the school may go to a 
teacher of higher studies and ask to be taught 
this or that branch. The teacher may be will- 
ing to impart to the pupil this knowledge of 
higher things, but the pupil cannot receive 
it until he has gone through certain other 
studies to prepare himself for it. The higher 
music cannot be taught until the rudiments 
have been mastered. There are qualities for 
which we may pray, but which can be received 
only after certain discipHne. A ripened char- 
acter cannot be attained by a young Christian 
merely in answer to prayer — it can be reached 
only through long experience. 
[36] 



dBioD'js ^tlencejs to m^ 

These are suggestions of what appear to be 
unanswered prayers. They may have been 
answered and we did not recognize the things 
we sought when they came. Or, they may be, 
indeed, unanswered, because to answer them 
would not have been kindness to us. Or the 
answers may have been delayed until our 
hearts were made ready to receive them. We 
may always trust God with our prayers, even 
when the need seems to us most urgent. He 
is wiser than we, and his love for us never 
makes a mistake. He will do for us whatever 
is best, at the best time, and in the best way. 
Unanswered prayers are not unheard prayers. 
Every whisper of a child, every sigh of a 
sufferer in this world, goes up to God, and 
his heart is compassionate and loving, and 
what is best for us he will do. 



[37] 



netting (t5oD 9ln 



[39] 



*' Breathe on me, breath of God, 
Fill me with life anew. 
That I mxiy love what thou dost love. 
And do what thou wouldst do. 

^^ Breathe on me, breath of God, 
Until my heart is pure; 
Until with thee I will one willy 
To do or to endure. 

*^ Breathe on me, breath of God, 
So shall I never die. 
But live with thee the perfect life 
Of thine eternity J ^ 



[40] 



CHAPTER FOURTH 

letting cKoD 3In 




HE teaching of Christian- 
ity is that God lives in us. 
On the day of Pentecost 
we are told that the dis- 
ciples of Christ were filled 
with the Holy Spirit. 
Every Christian may be, should be, a Spirit- 
filled Christian. We say we are only dust, 
but we may receive the breath of God into 
our dust, and then our lives are glorified. 
We often speak of someone coming into 
another's life, bringing new impulse, new in- 
spiration, new visions of beauty, new ideals 
of character. Many a life is transformed by 
a rich human friendship. It means far more, 
however, to have God come into one's life, 
touching the springs of being with divinity. 
Yet that is what it is to be a Christian of 
the New Testament type — that is the privi- 
[41] 



finDing tl^e 3^at 



lege of everyone who believes in Christ. A 
Christian is not merely a man who belongs 
to a church, who accepts the doctrines of 
Christianity, and who lives a good life. He is 
a man in whom God lives. 
The result of the divine indwelling is the re- 
newal of the nature. "That which is born of 
the Spirit is spirit." A life that has been only 
earthly hitherto grows into blessed sainthood 
when God enters into it. Someone writes of 
a man who left flowers blooming about his 
home which but for him would never have 
bloomed. The Spirit leaves heavenly flowers 
blooming which but for his abiding in us 
would never have bloomed. Saint Paul tells 
us about these in a well-known passage : "The 
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
suff*ering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 
meekness, self-control." 

Religion is not a mere matter of emotion or 
devout feeling — it is a matter of life. The 
influence of the indwelling Spirit is not shown 
merely in holy raptures, in ecstatic experi- 
ences, but in most practical ways in every- 
[42] 



letting d^oli 9In 



day living. Jesus said very emphatically that 
not everyone who says, "Lord, Lord," is in 
the kingdom of heaven. Obedience, he said, 
is the test. He only is in the heavenly king- 
dom that doeth the will of the Father. Noth- 
ing pleases our Master but obedience. He 
says very little about emotion, but a great 
deal about obeying. His friends are known 
not by their loud professions of love and ardor, 
but by their doing whatsoever he commands 
them to do. 

A very little love for our neighbor wrought 
out in a bit of every-day kindness, is worth a 
great deal of talk about love which finds no 
expression in act. To be kind and charitable, 
to give bread to the hungry, to deny one's 
self a pleasure in order to help another over 
a hard place, to go far out of one's way 
to be of use to another who is in need, are 
better evidences of the indwelling of the Spirit 
than any amount of effervescent talk about 
consecration in a prayer meeting. To be hon- 
est in business on Monday, to be a good, tidy 
and hospitable housekeeper on Tuesday, to 
[43] 



ftnDfng ti^e Wa^ 



pay one's debts on Wednesday, to be patient 
in enduring wrong on Thursday, is better 
proof of the Spirit's indwelHng than a whole 
hour's rapturous experience on Sunday, 
which bears no fruit in the hfe. If God is 
in us, the world will know it without being told 
of it — it will see it in character, in disposition, 
in act, in service of love, in the diffusion of 
grace and goodness. 

Here is a fragment from a genial writer: 
" 'Alice is not pretty,' said one of her friends, 
trying to define her character, 'and I never 
heard anybody call her brilliant; but you 
couldn't put her anywhere, in the poorest, 
narrowest place, without finding in a very 
little while that things had begun to grow 
about her. She could make a home in a des- 
ert, and not only would it be a home, with 
all the warm, welcoming feeling of one, but 
there would be fine, invisible lines stretching 
out from it to the world in every direction. 
I cannot imagine her in so poor a place that 
she could not find joy in it, nor in so lonely 
a place that the sorrowing and troubled would 
[44] 



netting cE^oD %n 



not find their way to her door. She has a gift 
for living — that's the secret.' " 
It is not easy to let God into our lives. It is 
easier to yield to the spirit of the world than 
to the divine Spirit. Yet if we knew what 
Christ could do with our poor lives, what 
beauty he could awaken in them, what bless- 
ings they would become if filled with his Spirit, 
what heavenly music they would give out if 
his hands struck their chords, we would wel- 
come him and surrender ourselves altogether 
to him. 

^' We are hut organs mute, till the master touches the 
keys ; 



Harps are we, silent harps, that have hung on 

willow trees. 
Dumb till our heartstrings swell and break with a 

pulse divine.*' 

It is not easy in this unspiritual world to 
keep the heavenly Guest in our heart day 
after day, year after year, to the end of life. 
Too many open to him on the Lord's day, 
[45] 



^inDing tl^e Wav 



and then on Monday let in again the old 
worldly guests who driye out the diyine Spirit. 
We all know how easy it is to lose out of our 
hearts the gentle thoughts and holy desires 
and spiritual feehngs which come to us in 
life's quiet, sacred moments. You sit down 
with your Bible in the pure, sweet morning, 
and as you read the Master's words it seems to 
you as if angels had come into your heart. 
You hear words of loye spoken out of heaven 
in 3'our ear. Desires kindled by the Spirit of 
God, desires for holy things, fill you. As 
you read and pray and meditate, it is as if 
you were sitting in the gate of heayen and 
hearing the songs of the holy beings gathered 
round God's throne. 

But half an hour later, you must go out into 
the world where a thousand other yoices will 
break upon your ears — yoices of temptation, 
voices of pleasure, voices of care and fret, the 
calls of business, of friendship, of emotion — 
not all holy voices, many of them calling you 
away from God. How will you carry with 
you all the day, tln-ough all these distractions 
[ ^6 ] 



letting mtj 91n 



and all these allurements, the holy thoughts, 
feelings, and desires of the moments of devo- 
tion in the morning? 

It is not easy to maintain the Sabbath peace 
in the midst of the strifes and competitions of 
the week-day life. It is not easy to take the 
blissful raptures of the holy communion out 
into the chill air of the streets, or to keep the 
glowing emotions of the hour of sacred prayer 
amid the influences of the shop or the factory. 
The messengers of heaven are shy and easily 
driven away, and we need to take most sedu- 
lous care lest they fly away and leave us. 

'^ Out of the deeps of heaven 

A bird has flown to my door, 
As twice in the ripening summers 
Its mates have flown before, 

" Why it has flown to my dwelling, 
Nor it nor I may know. 
And only the silent angels 
Can tell me when it shall go. 

" That it will not straightway vanish 
But fold its wings with me, 
[47] 



finDing ti^e Wav 



And sing in the greenest branches 
Till the axe is laid to the tree, 

^' Is the prayer of my love and terror; 
For my soul is sore distrest. 
Lest I wake some dreadful morning, 
And find hut its empty nest.^^ 

There are urgent warnings in the Scriptures 
against the danger of losing the divine abid- 
ing. We are exhorted not to grieve the Holy 
Spirit. There are many ways of grieving 
a friend. We may do it by unkindness, by 
indifference, by lack of hospitality. Jesus 
was a frequent guest in a home at Bethany, 
and found rest, comfort, and the refreshment 
of love there. It must have been a home of 
gentleness and peace, or he would not have 
entered its doors so often, nor found such 
gladness there. We cannot think of it as be- 
ing such a refuge and place of rest to him if 
its atmosphere had been one of bitterness and 
strife. 

A little Welsh girl went into a worldly home 

as a servant. All her life she had been used, in 

her own home, to godly ways — family pray- 

[48] 



letting C0OD %n 



ers, grace at meals, reverence for God, love, 
kindness. In this home where she was em- 
ployed, all this was wanting. There was no 
prayer, no reverence, no love — instead there 
was profanity, bitterness, strife, heaven-dar- 
ing sin. After one night, the little maid told 
her mistress that she could not stay — she was 
afraid to stay where God was not a guest. 
If we would keep the heavenly Guest in our 
heart, we must make a home of love there for 
him, with an atmosphere kindly and con- 
genial. In a prayerless, loveless heart the 
heavenly Guest will not stay. 
We are exhorted also not to quench the Spirit. 
The figure is of a fire burning within us, which 
we are in danger of putting out. There are 
many things that tend to quench the flame of 
divine love in a heart. Sin always does it. 
Anger, sensuality, pride, quench the holy 
flame. Worldliness in feeling and desire pro- 
duce an atmosphere in which the spirit of holi- 
ness cannot dwell. Fire must have air in which 
to burn, and only an atmosphere of love and 
humility will nourish this sacred flame. 
[49] 



fintiing tl^e Wa^ 



It will be a sad thing if the fire of heaven 
burning in our hearts should be allowed to go 
out. A writer tells of a conservatory which 
he saw one morning: "One bitter night the 
gardener neglected the fire, and what havoc 
was wrought! The leaves were black, every- 
thing drooped, the rare blossoms would bloom 
no more. For a few hours the fire was neg- 
lected and the floral treasures were frost- 
bitten beyond redemption." So will it be in 
any human life when the heavenly fire is 
quenched or allowed to go out. All the beauty 
will be left in ruin. 

We cannot guard our spiritual life too care- 
fully. God is infinitely patient. He is not 
easily driven away. He loves unto the utter- 
most. But we can keep the divine joy in our 
hearts only by maintaining there always an 
atmosphere of joy. The angel of peace will 
abide only where he is welcomed by a son of 
peace within. 



[50] 



Ci^e ^ttnpatl^t of Ci^tijst 



[51] 



*^To him who hears I whisper all; 

And so filler than the dews of heaven 
The tears of Chris fs compassion fall; 
I know I am forgiven, 

''Wrapped in the peace that follows prayer 
I fold my hands in perfect trust, 
Forgetful of the cross I hear 

Through noonday heat and dust, 

''No more lifers mysteries vex my thought; 
No cruel doubts disturb my breast; 
My heavy-laden spirit sought 
And found the promised rest J ^ 



[52] 



CHAPTER FIFTH 



Ci^e ^rittpati^i? of ci^ttjst 




HE gospel story of Christ 
closes with the account of 
his ascension. He was re- 
ceived up into heaven and 
sat down at the right hand 

of God. Was that the 

end of his interest in this world.? Does he 
think of us up there in his glory .^^ Does he 
know anything of us down here in our strug- 
gles, our toils, our cares, and our sorrows.'^ Is 
he interested in our lives in this world — in our 
joys and griefs, in our hopes and fears .'^ 
The answer to these questions is that in heaven 
he is "touched with the feeling of our infirmi- 
ties." He sympathizes with us in all the ex- 
periences of our lives. The word sympathy 
means suffering with. If two musical instru- 
ments, standing near each other, are tuned to 
the same key, and a performer plays on one 
[53] 



sfinDiug tl)c 5^at 



of them, the chords of the other respond, too, 
as if invisible fingei"^ were plaj'ing the same 
music on the strings. When two friends are 
side by side, and one of them is passing 
through an experience of either joy or pain, 
the other shares the experience. So Christ in 
heaven sympathizes with his friends on the 
earth in their experiences, and is instantly 
touched with the feeling of their gladness 
and their grief. 

We believe all this as a doctrine, but what 
meaning has it for us in our own lives ? What 
is Christ in heaven to us in a personal, practi- 
cal way? If the truth of the sympathy of 
Christ becomes real in our experience, it will 
bring great strength and inspiration to us. 
We are helped in times of weakness or suffer- 
ing by the consciousness that human friends 
are thinking of us and sharing our trouble. 
Immeasurably greater is the help which it 
gives us to know that Christ in heaven is 
touched by our pain and feels with us. 
If we were really conscious that Christ cares, 
feels with us, is actually interested in our 
[54] 



large and small affairs, it would change the 
meaning of all life for us. 

"// / could only surely know 
That all the things that tire me so 

Were noticed by my Lord — 
The pang that cuts me like a knife, 
The lesser pains of daily strife — 

What peace it would afford ! 

'* / wonder if he really shares 
In all these little human cares. 
This mighty King of kings; 
If he who guides through boundless space 
Each blazing planet in its place 
Can have the condescending grace 
To mind these petty things, 

*' It seems to me, if sure of this, 
Blent with each ill would come such bliss 

That I might covet pain, 
And deem whatever brought to me 
The loving thought of Deity 
And sense of ChrisVs sweet sympathy, 
Not loss, but richest gain, 

" Dear Lord, my heart shall no more doubt 
That thou dost compass me about 
With sympathy divine: 
[65] 



finning ti^e a^ar 



The love for me once crucified 
Is not the love to leave my side, 
But waiteth ever to divide 
Each smallest care of mine J ^ 

We have hints of the same truth in the Old 
Testament. For example, we read with refer- 
ence to God's people: "In all their afflictions 
he was afflicted." But the New Testament 
teaching means far more than this, for Christ 
lived all the story of human life through to 
its close, for himself, and, therefore, knows 
it by experience. When we are weary, it com- 
forts us to remember that many times he was 
weary, too. When we are treated unfairly, 
unkindly, or even with bitter wrong, it 
strengthens us to know that he understands, 
because he suffered in the same way. In our 
temptations it helps us to endure to remember 
that he was "tempted in all points like as we 
are." In any path in which we have to walk 
we can always find his footprints — he went 
over the same way before us, and, therefore, 
understands and sympathizes with us. 
There are many experiences in which the 
[56] 



sympathy of Christ, if it were reahzed, would 
give great comfort. There are people who 
are misunderstood. Indeed, there is no one 
whom others always fully understand. Even 
our truest friends ofttimes put wrong con- 
structions upon what we do or what we say. 
Little things separate lives which ought to be 
kept close together. Very much sadness is 
caused by misunderstandings. 

^^Not understood! How many hearts are aching 
For lack of sympathy! Ah, day hy day, 
How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking, 
How many noble spirits pass away 
Not understood! 

"0 God! that men would see a little clearer. 
Or judge less harshly when they cannot see, 
God! that men might draw a little nearer 
To one another. They'd be nearer thee, 
And understood,' ' 

But Christ understands us perfectly. He 
knows all the truth about us. He knows our 
faults, and is patient with them, and does not 
chide us, nor cast us off because of them, but 
[57] 



finDtng ti^e Wav 



helps us to overcome them. When we are 
blamed unjustly, he understands and sympa- 
thizes with us and strengthens us to go on in 
patience. When we have done wrong, he 
knows, but is pitiful toward our weakness, 
and merciful toward our sin, if only we are 
striving ever to grow better. In every mood 
of our experience he sympathizes with us. 
There are sorrows in every life, many of 
which are inexplicable. There are those 
whose quietest days are full of struggles of 
which their closest friends can know nothing. 
It is very hard for some people to be good, 
to resist temptation, to keep sweet under irri- 
tation and insult, to maintain purity of heart 
amid all the enticements of temptation. 
Nothing else gives such strength and help in 
hard experiences as knowing of the unfaiUng 
sympathy of Christ. 

The superintendent of an inebriate asylum 
said that he always had hope of even the 
worst case of intemperance, if he knew that 
the man had some one at home who loved him 
and was praying for him; but that he had 
[58] 



I ■ — — ■ 

little hope of the permanent reform of any one 
for whom there was no wrestling love at home. 
If there is such help in human love and inter- 
est and prayer, how much more must there be 
in the confidence that Christ is sympathizing 
and interceding? 

The story is told of a distinguished woman, 
that when she was a girl she was so homely 
that even her mother said to her one day: 
"My poor child, you are so ugly that no one 
will ever love you." The cruel words fell 
into the child's heart, but instead of making 
her bitter they had just the opposite effect. 
She determined that if her face was homely 
she would make her life so beautiful that peo- 
ple would love her. She began to be kind to 
everybody, to be loving, thoughtful, gentle, 
helpful. She never became handsome in 
features, but she did become the good angel 
of the community in which she lived. It was 
love in her heart that transformed her life 
and saved her from utter disheartenment. 
There are those whose lives have been hurt in 
some way, and who seem doomed to carry 
[59] 



iJffntiing tl^e Wav 



their marring or wounding through all their 
days, but whom the love of Christ can yet 
restore to beauty and strength. There is no 
ruin which he cannot build up again into fair 
loveliness. There is no defeat which he can- 
not turn into victory. To know that he is 
touched, the Christ on his throne of glory, 
with the feeling of our infirmities puts into 
the heart a new secret of joy which will trans- 
form the dreariest life into heavenly glad- 
ness. 



[60] 



Ci^e flDttlr TBonD 



[61] 



*'/ feel the unutterable longing f 

The hunger of the breast is mine; 
I reach and grasp for hands in darkness. 
My ear grows sharp for voice or sign, 

"0 friend f no proof beyond this yearning, 
This outstretch of our hands we need; 
God will not mock this hope he giveth. 
No love he prompts shall vainly plead, 

*^Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, 
And call our loved ones o'er and o^er; 
Some day their arms shall close about i^, 
And the old voices speak once more,'' 



[62] 



CHAPTER SIXTH 



Cl^e €>nli? 'Bonn 




VERY life has its secret, 
that which accounts for its 
trend, its choices, its toils, 
its achievements. When we 
see a mother with her sick 
child, forgetting herself, 
losing her rest, bending day and night over 
the bed where the little life is flickering, we 
know the secret of her devoted watching. It 
is love that is at the heart of it all. 
There is a story of a ship captain who sails 
away over the sea on long voyages. He is 
deeply interested in all his duties and per- 
forms them with utmost faithfulness. He 
spends long nights on deck, studying the 
problems of the sea and guiding his ship 
through the perils. At last he reaches his 
destination, and in due time sails back again 
[63] 



dfinDinij ti^e Wa^ 



with his cargo from foreign lands, arriving 
through all the dangers of the long voyage. 
And then — what then ? He goes on shore and 
hurries to a quiet cottage where a little child 
is living in a nurse's care, and gives into the 
child's hands all that he has earned. That 
child is the secret of all his toil and care, the 
inspiration of all his voyages. He has not 
talked of her, nor seemed to be thinking of 
her, but in reality she has been at the center 
of his heart all the while. If he had come 
back and found the cottage empty and only a 
little grave to lavish his love upon, he would 
have cared nothing for all the fruits of his 
success. Love is the secret. 
It is worth our while to ask what is the secret 
of our own life. Of course, there are human 
loves and there are secondary motives, but 
what is the great central motive? Is there 
anything stronger than home and loved ones 
and earthly ambitions, that impel us to toil, 
to struggle, to sacrifice? Saint Paul tells us 
the secret of his wonderful life in one little 
word — "The love of Christ constraineth us." 
[64] 



Ci^e Onlr i3onD 



" Under an eastern sky. 
Amid a rahhle cry, 
A man went forth to die — 
For me. 

" Thorn-crowned his blessed head, 
Blood-stained his every tread, 
Cross-laden, on he sped — 
For me J* 

"The love of Christ constraineth us." Com- 
mentators discuss the question whether this 
means Christ's love for us or ours for him. It 
must mean both. Christ's love for us comes 
first. What the sun is to the trees and grasses 
and flowers in the springtime, the love of 
Christ is to our love. If he did not love us, 
we never should love him. Our love would 
sleep on and never awake but for his kiss. 
When we begin to know that Christ loves us 
we begin to love him. "We love him because 
he first loved us." 

Christ's love transforms. It repeats itself in 

our lives, i A chaplain on a battlefield came 

to a man who was wounded, lying on the 

[65] 



ifinliing ti^e Wa^ 



ground. "Would you like me to read you 
something from this book — ^the Bible?" he 
asked the soldier. "I'm so thirsty," replied the 
man ; "I would rather have a drink of water." 
Quickly as he could the chaplain brought the 
water and held it to the parched lips. Then 
the soldier asked, "Could you put something 
under my head?" The chaplain took off his 
own light overcoat, rolled it, and put it gently 
under the soldier's head for a pillow. "Now," 
said the soldier, "if I had something over me ! 
I am very cold." There was only one thing 
the chaplain could do. He took off his own 
coat and spread it over the soldier. The 
wounded man looked up into his face and 
said gratefully, "Thank you." Then after 
a moment's pause he said: "If there is any- 
thing in that book in your hand that makes 
a man do for another what you have done 
for me, please read it to me." Men are ready 
to hear us read the book which tells of the love 
of Christ for them only when our lives in- 
terpret what the book says. 
Recently a story appeared in one of the 
166} 



« 



C^e ^nlv l3onD 



papers, entitled, "How a Man Coined His 
Heart." It was a poor artist. There had 
been in his life a sad story of love, true and 
deep on his part, yet seemingly unrequited, 
and even false, on the part of the other. The 
world had not known anything of it — ^he had 
kept his secret very close. But there came a 
call for a piece of work — a calendar — and the 
artist put his life's whole story into it — ^the 
springtime, with its beauty ; the summer, with 
its bloom; the autumn, with its decaying 
hope; the winter, with its dreary desolation. 
He coined his heart into his picture and sold 
it to get bread for his hunger. Christ coined 
his heart into a great sacrifice of love, and 
purchased redemption for the world. The 
cross is the love of Christ, pouring out its 
gold. So we are to coin our hearts into lives 
of love and service, into deeds of kindness and 
helpfulness. 

Nothing but the love of Christ in us will en- 
able us to do this. A soldier may be without 
love for the commander or for the cause he 
serves, and may march and fight merely for 
[67] 



{ftntitng tl^e Wa^ 



the paltry money he receives. But the Chris- 
tian must love his Master or his life will count 
for nothing. There is a legend of an artist 
who had a marvelous red tint in his pictures. 
No other had learned the secret and it died 
with him. After his death a red wound was 
discovered near his heart and the secret of 
the wonderful color in his paintings was re- 
vealed. It was his heart's blood that gave 
his work its inimitable tint. The old legend 
tells a deep spiritual truth. Only heart's 
blood will give value to what we do, will put 
the heavenly color into our work. What we 
do without love fades out. When it is the 
love of Christ that constrains us, our simplest, 
commonest acts have divine beauty and bless- 
ing in them. 

The love of Chi'ist is the only bond that can 
bind lives together inseparably and forever. 
People talk of reunions in the other world. 
"I cannot bring her back again," said one 
beside his dead, ''but I can go to her." Yet 
we need to remember that only those who are 
bound together here by a common love for 
[68] 



ci^c €>ttli? isonn 



Christ shall find each other and know each 
other and be together in the other world. 
Several years since, in one of the magazines, 
was this suggestive story: Once there was a 
woman who loved a man. He died, and she 
sought some way to reach him where he was, 
and could not. Then a heavenly messenger 
came to her and said: "I have been sent to 
help thee, for thy crying has been heard. 
What is thy need?" 

The woman answered: "That I may find the 
soul of my husband, who is dead." 
The Shining One said to her: "That may 
be done only if there is a bond between you 
that death could not break." 
She said: "Surely there is a bond. I have 
lain in his bosom. I have borne the sacred 
name of wife." 

But the angel shook his head and said: 
"That is no bond." 

Then she raised her head proudly and said: 
"Surely there is a bond. I have held his chil- 
dren in my arms; with their innocence have 
they bound us together. By the sorrow in 
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which I bore them there is an enduring bond.'' 
But the angel said, very sadlj^: ''Even this 
will not suffice." 

Then the woman paled, but she said: "My 
spirit and that of my husband were one. In 
I naught were we separate. Each answered 

I each without speech. We were one. Does not 

I that bond hold?" 

I But the angel answered very low : "It does not 

hold. In the domain of death all these bonds 
of which thou speakest crumble to nothing. 
The very shape of them has departed, so that 
they are as if they never were. Think yet 
once more, I pray thee, before I leave thee, 
if there is one thread to bind thee to him 
whom thou lovest; for if not, he has passed 
from thee forever." 

The woman was silent, but she cried to herself 
desperately: "He shall not go from me!" 
The angel withdrew a little way, and the 
woman thought and thought, with deep in- 
ward communing, and after a space she raised 
her face, and said: "Once — but it was long 
ago — he and I thought of God together." 
[ TO ] 



Ci^e flDnlt laonD 



The angel gave a loud cry, and his shining 
wings smote the earth, and he said: "Thou 
hast found the bond. Thou hast found the 
bond." 

The woman looked, and lo! there lay in her 
hand a tiny thread, faintly golden, as if 
woven from the strands of the sunlight, and 
it led into the darkness. 

A truth is taught in this story — only those 
who think of God together have between them 
a bond of union which death cannot sever. 
The only tie which never shall be broken is 
love for Christ. Those whom this sacred 
bond unites never shall be separated. If this 
love is not in us, there is nothing in our lives 
which will endure; all else will perish. 



[71] 



Ci^e piamt at pva^tt 



[73] 



When prayer delights thee least, then learn to say, 
'*Soulf now is thy greatest need that thou shouldst pray.^^ 

Crooked and warped I am, and I would fain 
Straighten myself hy thy right line again, 

— ^Archbishop Trench. 

God answers prayer; sometimes, when hearts are weak, 
He gives the very gifts believers seek. 

But often faith must learn a deeper rest. 
And trust God^s silence when he does not speak; 

For he, whose name is Love, will send the best. 

Stars may burn out, nor mountain walls endure. 

But God is true, his promises are sure 

To those who seek. 

— Myra Goodwin Plantz. 



[74] 



CHAPTER SEVENTH 

Ci^e jmajster at pvan^ 




HEN General Gordon was 
with his army in Khar- 
toum it is said that there 
was an hour every day 
when a white handkerchief 
lay over his tent door. 
While that signal was there no one, however 
high his rank, ever approached the tent. The 
most urgent business waited outside. Every 
one knew that Gordon was at prayer that 
hour within the tent, and not a man nor an 
officer came near until the handkerchief was 
lifted away. 

There is always a sacredness about prayer. 
We instantly withdraw if unawares we sud- 
denly come upon one engaged in prayer. We 
are awed into reverence when we see any one, 
however humble, bowing in prayer. But the 
sight of Christ at prayer touches us with still 
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deeper awe. We uncover our heads, and take 
off our shoes, and stand afar off in reverent 
hush while he bows before his Father and com- 
munes with him. Yet no figure is more fa- 
miHar in the Gospels than the Master at 
prayer. 

It brings Christ very near to us to see him 
in this holy posture. We think of him as the 
Son of God, as having in himself all power, 
all blessing, all comfort, and all divine full- 
ness, and as not needing to ask even his 
Father for anything. But when he be- 
came man he accepted all our life. He lived 
as we must live. He was dependent on God, 
as we are, for help, for strength, for deliver- 
ance in temptation, for all blessing and good. 
He prayed as we do, pleading earnestly as 
he taught us to do. When we think how com- 
pletely and fully Jesus entered into all our 
life of trust and dependence we get a vivid 
impression of his closeness to us. And if he, 
the Son of man, who knew no sin, who was 
also Son of God, needed to pray so continu- 
ally, how can any of us, weak, sinful, needy, 
[76] 



Ci^e pia^ttt at i^m^et 

with imperiled lives, with empty lives, get 
along without prayer? 

In a sense, Jesus was always at prayer. His 
communion with God was never interrupted 
for a moment. One of Saint Paul's exhorta- 
tions is, "Pray without ceasing," Our Lord 
fulfilled this ideal. He was not always on his 
knees. He passed most of his days in ex- 
hausting service. But in all his ministry of 
love he never ceased to pray. 
He was not always asking favors of his 
Father. That is the only kind of praying 
some people seem to know anything about. 
They pray only when they are in trouble, and 
want to be helped out of it. But that is a 
very small part of true prayer. We want to 
be with our friends as much as we can. 
Though we have no request to make of them, 
we like to talk with them of things in which 
they and we are mutually interested, or even 
to sit in silence without speech. 

''Rather, as friends sit sometimes hand in hand, 
Nor mar with words the sweet speech of their eyes; 
So in soft silence let us oftener how, 
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{ffinDing ti^e ^at 



Nor try with words to make God understand. 

Longing is prayer; upon its wings we rise 

To where the breath of heaven beats upon our brow,'' 

Some friends wanted to know how the holy 
^K Bengel prayed, and watched him at his devo- 
tions one night. He opened his New Testa- 
ment and read slowly and silently, often paus- 
ing in meditation, or as if listening to the 
voice of gentle stillness. There was a glow in 
his features, and frequently he would look up 
as if he saw a face his watchers could not 
see. Thus an hour passed. He had not once 
been on his knees, nor had he been heard to 
utter a word. Then as the clock struck the 
hour for his retiring he closed the book, say- 
ing only, "Dear Lord Jesus, we are on the 
same old terms," and went to his bed. That 
was truest prayer. That is what it is to pray 
without ceasing — to be always near enough to 
God to talk with him, always to be drinking 
in his love even in our busiest hours. 
But, while Jesus prayed thus without ceasing, 
there were many occasions of special prayer 
in his life. Again and again he went apart 
[78] 



Ci^e pia^ttt at pva^t 

from men to be alone with God. He spent 
whole nights in communion beneath the silent 
stars. 

" Cold mountains and the midnight air 
Witnessed the fervor of thy prayer,^' 

It will be interesting to notice some of the 
occasions on which Jesus prayed. The first 
of these was at the time of his baptism. 
Whatever else his baptism meant, it was his 
consecration to the work of his Messiahship. 
He knew what it involved. He saw the cross 
yonder, but he voluntarily entered on his 
course of love and sacrifice. As he was being 
baptized he prayed, and the heaven was 
opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a 
bodily form, as a dove, upon him. His pray- 
ing that hour showed his deep longing and 
desire for the divine anointing to prepare 
him for his great work. 

This example of Jesus teaches us to seek 
divine blessing as we begin our life work, also 
as we enter any new calling, as we accept any 
new responsibility. People sometimes forget 
that they need divine anointing for what they 
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jftntitng ti^e War 



call secular work. They want God's Spirit to 
help them in their religious duties, but they do 
not suppose that they need heavenly anoint- 
ing for a business life, or a professional life, 
or for the taskwork of their common days. 
Yet there is nothing we have to do, however 
unspiritual it may seem, in the doing of which 
we do not need the help of the Holy Spirit. 
Another of the occasions on which Jesus 
prayed was before he chose his disciples. 
This choice was most important. These men 
were to be with him as his close, constant com- 
panions, his personal friends. He would 
need their companionship, their sympathy, 
their love. Then upon them would rest a 
grave responsibility after he was gone. He 
was to train them, so that they would be ready 
to carry on his work. They must be men 
capable of absolute devotion to his will, 
men who could endure persecution, men whom 
the Holy Spirit could use. It was of the 
greatest importance that no mistake should 
be made. So, before choosing them, Jesus 
spent the whole night in prayer. 
[80] 



Ci^e fMmv at pta^tt 

A great deal of folly is committed in the 
world by ignorant and foolish choices. It is 
so in choosing friends. We do not know 
what any such choice may mean to us, 
whether it may bring us joy or sorrow, 
whether it may put upon our life touches of 
beauty or of marring. If Jesus prayed all 
night before choosing his friends, young peo- 
ple setting out in life should very earnestly 
seek God's guidance before taking into their 
lives any new companionship. 
But the lesson applies to all choices and de- 
cisions. We do not know what path to take 
in all the tangled network of ways. We do 
not know to what any new road may lead us. 
We chafe and fret when we are not allowed 
to have our own way. But really we have no 
wisdom to choose what is best for us. We are 
safe only when we are divinely led. 
We behold the Master at prayer again, and 
this time something very wonderful happens. 
One evening he climbed a high mountain to 
get away from earth's noises and confusions. 
He was setting out on his last journey to his 
[81] 



jffntiing tl^e Wa^ 



cross, and sought strength for it. While he 
was praying, he was transfigured. The infer- 
ence for us is that earnest prayer always 
transfigures. 

And there are so many people who need trans- 
figuring ! Their faces are not bright. They 
lack joy. The peace of God is not revealed in 
them. They bear the marks of care, of fret, 
of anxiety, of discontent. They tell of de- 
feat and disheartenment. Yet the love of 
Christ is meant to transfigure our lives. Paul 
gives us the secret when he tells us to be 
anxious for nothing, but instead to take 
every troubling thing to God in prayer, and 
then adds that if we do this the peace of God 
shall guard our hearts and our thoughts in 
Christ Jesus. The peace of God, then, makes 
shining faces. There is no reason why our 
dull faces should not shine. "As he was 
praying the fashion of his countenance was 
altered, and his raiment became white and 
dazzling." 

We see the Master at prayer again, this time 

in Gethsemane. It was here that he prepared 

[82] 



Ci^e piamt at i^ta^er 

for his cross. We should notice that his ref- 
uge in his exceeding sorrow was prayer, and 
that, as the sorrow deepened, the refuge still 
was prayer. "Being in an agony he prayed 
more earnestly." Prayer is the only refuge 
in sorrow. The lesson from the garden 
prayer is that we should take all the hard 
things, the anguishes, the insufferable pains, 
the bitter griefs of our lives, to God in prayer. 
We may be sure, too, that God will answer. 
If he does not relieve us of the suffering, he 
will strengthen us so that we can keep it, and 
still go on trusting and singing. 
No doubt, much of our Lord's prayer was in- 
tercession. We have one or two glimpses of 
this interceding. He said to Peter in great 
sadness: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked 
to have you, that he might sift you as wheat ; 
but I made supplication for thee, that thy 
faith fail not." There is a wondrous reveal- 
ing of comfort in this for us when we remem- 
ber that as our Great High Priest he ever 
liveth to make intercession for us. Another 
instance of intercession was on the cross, when 
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he prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they 
know not what they do." Not his murderers 
only, but all men, were included in that 
prayer of redemption, as the sacrincial blood 
began to flow. 

That last prayer of Jesus was, "Father, into 
thy hands I commend my spirit.'' Thus his 
spirit went forth on the wings of prayer into 
his Fathers bosom. So it shall be with us, 
his friends, when we come to the edge of the 
great mystery, and cannot see the way. Dy- 
ing, for a Christian, is but flying away from 
earth's passing things to be with God for- 
ever. 



[84] 



Ci^e pia^ttv on ti^e istat^ 



[85] 



^^ Beside thy gracious heart content I stay. 
Or with thee fate's appointed journey go; 
I lean upon thee when my step is slow, 
I wrap me with thee in the naked day, 

*'With thee no loneliness, no pathless way. 

The wind is heaven^ s, to take as it shall blow: 
More than thy voice, thy hand, I need not know; 
I may not murmur, for I shall not stray. ^^ 



[86] 



CHAPTER EIGHTH 



%^t piamt on ti^e i^eaci^ 




NE of the most interesting 
of our Lord's appearances 
after his resurrection was 
the one which took place 
beside the sea. The scene 
shows a fire burning on 
the beach, with fish broihng on the coals, and 
bread ; then beside the fire, the Master. 
The scene meant a great deal to the disci- 
ples. First of all, it had its cheer for them. 
We have lost much in our modern homes in 
giving up the old-fashioned fireplace with 
its blazing logs, and even in losing the open 
grate. The fire on the hearth was a bright- 
ener of the home. It is only in a poetical 
way that we can talk now about our hearth- 
stones. 

The fire burning on the sand that spring 
morning made the shore appear more at- 
tractive and hospitable to the tired fishermen. 
[87] 



finning tl^e l^at 



Then there was more than a fire; there were 
provisions — fish broihng, and bread. Had 
the Master himself kindled the fire? At least 
it was his thought and love that provided the 
breakfast. Indeed, it was the presence of the 
Master himself that gave to the scene its deep- 
est meaning. Always it is the human element 
that is the charm in any scene. There is a 
story of a picture that seemed to be almost 
perfect, and yet people did not stop to look 
at it long, and were not moved to enthusiastic 
admiration as they stood before it. It lacked 
something. The artist discovered what the 
lack was, and taking his brush he painted a 
bit of human life on the canvas — a woman 
and a child — and now the picture had a resist- 
less charm for every one who saw it. 
That lonely beach would have had a certain 
attraction for those discouraged fishermen 
that morning, even if they had seen nothing 
but the fire burning on it. But it was the 
human form standing beside the fire that gave 
the scene its chief attraction. Then when we 
remember who the man was that stood in the 
[88] 



Ci^e piamt on ti^e ^Beaci^ 

dim gray of the morning and called to the 
fishermen, we need seek no further for the 
reasons why that morning hour was ever after 
so sacred in the memory of those men. They 
had found their Lord again. 
The presence of Christ changes everything 
wherever it is recognized. It changed every- 
thing for those men. The sea had never been 
so beautiful to their eyes before. The hills 
had never looked so glorious in their spring 
verdure. No morning had ever appeared in 
such radiant splendor as that morning. Their 
sorrow was changed into joy and their loneli- 
ness into the blessedness of holiest companion- 
ship. 

So always, when Christ comes into our lives, 
all things are made new. A letter received the 
other day illustrates this. The writer has 
been a Christian many years — faithful, trust- 
ing, helpful, and full of good works. But 
during the past three months there has been 
serious illness in her home — a beloved daugh- 
ter has been lying in fever. In this experi- 
ence the mother has learned as never before 
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ftntitng tl)c Wa^ 



how real is the love of Christ in the lives of his 
friends. "Xo story could be told wliich would 
be more wonderful than the story of the good- 
ness shown to me these months, notliing more 
nearly reacliing the miraculous than the way 
Christ has sent comfort and blessing to me 
and to my sick child.'* Then she goes over 
the story, and it is wonderful indeed. At the 
moment of need the right comfort always 
came. A nurse was necessary, but could not 
be afforded. Then a message came from an 
old friend, not seen for years, and the nurse 
was provided. Letters came every day with 
their s^mipathy and cheer, just when the 
mothers burden seemed too heavy for her to 
bear. Every memory of the suffering of 
these months is made bright with some 
thought of Christ's love wliich came at the 
rirfit moment. Evervtliino: has been trans- 
figured for this mother. She found the fire 
burning on the beach, with fish thereon and 
bread, and the Master standinof bv. 
This scene on the beach had also its comfort 
for the disciples. For three vears thev had 
[ 90 ] 



Ci^e pia^ttv on ti^e OBeaci^ 

been with their Master in closest companion- 
ship. He had received them into most inti- 
mate fellowship. They had heard his teach- 
ings and experienced his friendship in its most 
sacred revealings. Some of us know what 
even a rich-hearted, noble, strong, gentle, 
true human friend may be to us in the way 
of comfort and strength. One wrote to 
another : 

/ wish that I might tell you what you are 

To me — you seem so fine and strong and true, 

So hold, and yet so gentle, so apart 

From petty strivings that confuse men's minds, 

I wish that I might make you understand 

How your clean, brave young life has made me brave, 

How I am cheered and strengthened and upheld, 

When I consider that the world holds you 

A hero; in a world of false ideals 

Your truth, your worth, has blazed its own brave way. 

If a noble human friendship can mean so 
much to one who enjoys its blessings, what 
must the friendship of Christ have meant to 
the men who had enjoyed all that was tender 
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and precious in it ! But now this precious com- 
panionship was ended. In their bewilderment 
without his presence, the disciples had gone 
back to their old work. "I go a fishing," said 
Simon. "We also come with thee," the others 
said. But how weary it must have seemed, 
this tiresome handling of boats and oars and 
ropes and nets, after those three years of ex- 
alted friendship with Christ ! They had sup- 
posed that this sort of commonplace work 
would never be theirs again. But now it 
seemed all that was left for them to do. They 
were heroic in returning to the old tasks, 
dreary though they were. They took up the 
work that was at hand, dull though it was, 
and lo ! there stood the Master by the fire, with 
comfort and blessing for them. 
The time of the appearance of Jesus was most 
opportune. It was when the men were at 
their work. A little while before he had ap- 
peared to them in the upper room, when they 
were at prayer. We expect Christ to meet us 
when we assemble to worship him. But here 
the appearance was when they were at their 
[92] 



Ci^e piamt on t\)t "Beaci^ 

old occupation. Christ will meet us, not only 
at the communion or at the mercy seat — he is 
quite as likely to manifest himself to us in the 
dullest task-work of the common days. 

^^So stilly dear Lordy in every place 
Thou standest by the toiling folk 
With love and pity in thy face. 
And givest of thy help and grace 
To those who meekly hear the yoke,^' 

In every life there are tasks which are Irk- 
some. Young people sometimes think school 
work dull. There are faithful mothers who 
grow weary in the endless tasks of the house- 
hold life. There are men who sometimes tire 
of the routine of the office, the store, the shop. 
There comes to all of us at times the feeling 
that our work is not quite worthy of us. We 
have had a glimpse of life in some exalted 
experience. It may have been a companion- 
ship for a time with one above us in circum- 
stances or in attainments, and now it irks us 
to come back again to the old plodding 
round, or to the old, plain, commonplace 
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associations. After three years with Jesus, 
we can easily understand how distasteful to 
the disciples it was to return to the fisher- 
man's life, among the rude, coarse and un- 
gentle Galilaean fishermen with whom they 
must associate. 

A young woman spent ten months in a home 
of rare refinement and grace, with the best 
books and music and art and culture in the 
daily home life. Then she returned to her 
own lowly home, with its plain circumstances, 
its lack of art and music and books, and its 
many uncongenialities, — a home, too, that 
was not always sweet in its fellowships, and 
we can understand how hard it was for her to 
do this. 

Sometimes this happens : There comes a re- 
verse in fortune which changes all one's cir- 
cumstances. The income is cut off* perhaps 
by the death of the bread-winner, and leisure, 
ease and elegance have to be exchanged for 
plain conditions, poverty, toil and bare rooms. 
It is not easy to leave the beautiful home 
and go to live in a tenement or in a narrow 
[94] 



Ci^e piamv on ti^e QBeaci^ 

court. The experience tests character, and 
some people lose their courage and hope in 
the testing. Some, however, meet it nobly, 
because they have Christ. A man thinks he 
is settled for life in a condition of comfort 
and elegance, that his prosperity is sure and 
cannot be broken. Then suddenly, all his 
dreams vanish. He loses all he has. His 
first thought is, "How can I go back to the 
bare circumstances, the hard tasks, the dull 
drudgery, the long hours, the grinding rou- 
tine under an exacting master?" 
Some such feelings were in the minds of the 
disciples that morning when they saw the 
fire burning on the beach. They had taken 
up their old occupation as a duty, and there 
was the Master waiting to greet them. So it 
will always be with those who bravely accept 
changed conditions and nobly take up the 
work that lies nearest, though it be hard and 
distasteful. 

Another suggestion from this scene is that 
Christ helps his friends in their common task- 
work. The disciples were sorely discouraged. 
[95] 



finDing ti^e War 



They had been dragging their nets all night 
and had nothing to show for their toil. Morn- 
ing began to dawn, and lifting up their eyes, 
they saw a fire burning on the beach, and their 
Master standing beside it. At once he showed 
his sympathy with them. Knowing their dis- 
heartenment, he called to them, "Children, 
have ye aught to eat.'^" He is always trying 
to cheer us and make us brave and strong. 
Then a moment later he told them where to 
cast their net, and they drew it full. 
We must notice that it was their secular work 
in which Jesus helped these men. We ex- 
pect him to help us in our praying, our re- 
ligious duties, our church work, but here we 
have him helping at a piece of common task- 
work. Christ has a deep interest in our 
worldly affairs and occupations, in our toil 
and burden-bearing. Somehow, many good 
people expect no divine interest and help in 
their week-day work. But here we see the 
Master helping his friends at their fishing. 
This suggests to us how earthly success de- 
pends on the Master's direction. We may ask 
[96] 



Ci^e jHajstet on ti^e QBeaci^ 

him to show us where to drop our nets. Many 
of us get disheartened when things do not 
seem to go well. Our business is not as profit- 
able as we could wish. Burdens are heavy, 
competition is keen. We do not get on well. 
Ofttimes it is with us as it was with the dis- 
ciples that morning, — hard, discouraging, 
fruitless toil. Then it was at the close of 
that long, toilsome night, with nothing to 
show for its work, that, looking shoreward, 
they saw a fire burning on the beach and the 
Master standing beside it. 
That is the picture for us all. Ever the fire is 
burning on the beach. Always the Master is 
full of sympathy when we have failed or are 
discouraged. Always he will help, changing 
failure into success, filling nets empty until 
now. Over against all failure, at the dawn 
of every morning that breaks after a night of 
unavailing toil, Jesus stands on the shore to 
give help, blessing and cheer. 

Thus, the fire on the beach is the token of 
Christ's interest in all our work and a pledge 
of his help in things we call secular as well 
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as in things we call spiritual. Jesus is always 
the friend of the toiling folk, and makes many 
of the sweetest revealings in lowly and humble 
places. Henry van Dyke puts it thus : 

Never in a costly palace did I rest on golden bed, 
Never in a hermifs cavern have I eaten idle bread. 

Born within a lowly stable where the cattle round me 

stood, 
Trained a carpenter in Nazareth, I have toiled and 

found it good. 

They who tread the path of labor follow where my feet 

have trod; 
They who work without complaining do the holy will 

of God. 

Where the many toil together, there am I among my 

own; 
Where the tired workman sleepeth, there am I with 

him alone. 

I, the peace that passeth knowledge, dwell amid the 

daily strife, 
I, the bread of heaven, am broken in the sacrament of 

life. 

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91n ti^e lotje of d^oD 



[99] 



t.ofC. 



love that will not let me go, 

I rest my weary soul in thee; 

1 give thee hack the life I owe. 
That in thine ocean depths its flow 

May richer, fuller he. 

O Light that followest all my way, 

I yield my flickering torch to thee; 
My heart restores its horrowed ray, 
That in thy sunshine^ s hlaze its day 
May hrighter, fairer he. 

— George Matheson. 



[100] 



CHAPTER NINTH 

9In ti^e UU of mn 




SCRIPTURAL counsel 
bids us keep ourselves in 
the love of God. This does 
not mean that we should 
keep ourselves loving God. 
Of course, we should al- 
ways love God. He should ever have the 
first place in our affection. Not to love God 
is to fail in our first and holiest duty, to cut 
ourselves off from the source of all blessing, 
and to rob our lives of the best good. 
Yet that is not what is meant in the exhor- 
tation to keep ourselves in the love of God. 
We all know something of the experience of 
discouragement which ofttimes comes when 
the duty of loving God is pressed upon us. 
Our love seems so feeble, so unsatisfactory, 
so much less intense than it should be, and so 
fitful and changeable, that it does not com- 
fort us to think of it. It is well, therefore, 
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that we are not asked to measure our faith 
by the degree of our love of God. If this 
were the index, our heart's joy would be 
sadly variable. It is well that we have for 
our comfort something better than our poor, 
fitful love for God. 

^'Our love so faint y so cold to thee, 
A7id thine to us so great,'' 

We are taught to keep ourselves in God's 
love, in its blessed warmth, believing in it, 
trusting in it, letting it flood our lives. 

" Thine the hearing and forbearing 
Through the patient years; 
Thine the loving , and the moving 

Plea of sacred tears. 

* * * * 
" Mine the leaving and the grieving 
Of thy mournful eyes; 
Mine the fretting and forgetting 
Of our blood-hound ties, 
^ ^ ^ ^ 
*^ Mine the wrecking ^ thine the building , 
Of my happiness — 
My only Saviour, help me make 
The dreadful difference less,'' 
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The love of God is infinite. It is infinite 
in its tenderness. Human love is easily 
wearied. The divine love is inexhaustible in 
its patience and gentleness. Looking back 
over his past life, with all its follies, failures 
and sins, and remembering the goodness of 
God which never had given him up, but which 
had brought him to honor and power, David, 
in his old age, gave the secret of it all in the 
words, "Thy gentleness hath made me great." 
None of us know how much we owe to God's 
gentleness. 

A writer tells the story of a boy who at the 
age of eight was regarded as being of feeble 
mind, hopelessly imbecile, the result of some 
illness in infancy. The boy's father was 
widely known as an educator. Inspired by 
his deep love for his child, he took personal 
charge of his training, devoting himself to it 
most assiduously. If the boy had been sent 
to ordinary schools, he would probably never 
have been anything but an imbecile. As it 
was, however, he became bright and talented, 
passed with honor through one of the great 
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universities, and became a man of ability and 
influence. The father's gentleness made him 
great. His genius as a teacher, inspired by 
his strong love for his child, took the poor, 
stunted life, and by patience developed its 
latent possibilities into beauty and noble 
strength. 

That is what God's wonderful love does 
with us. What would we have been but for 
the divine care of us ? As the warm sunshine 
falling upon the bare, dried, briery bush, 
unsightly and apparently useless, wooes out 
leaves and buds and marvelous roses, so the 
warm love of God, falling upon our poor, 
sin-hurt lives, with only death before them, 
awakens in them heavenly yearnings and long- 
ings and aspirations, and leads them out and 
glorifies them. 

There is wonderful inspiration in the 
knowledge and consciousness that God loves 
us. A newsboy was in the habit of running 
after a gentleman on the ferry-boat and 
brushing his coat with affectionate fondness. 
One day the gentleman asked him, "Why are 
[104] 



9In ti^e 10130 of dPon 



you so careful with me every morning?" The 
boy answered, "Because once, when you 
bought a paper, you said, ^My child!' No 
one ever called me his child before. That's 
the reason. I love you for saying that to 
me." It was the first love the boy had found 
in this world, and it was like heaven to him. 
It is a blessed moment to us when we first 
realize that God is our Father, and calls us 
his own children. It fills us with unspeakable 
joy. It brings the love of God about us in 
floods. It lifts us up into heaven in our 
experience. 

If we keep ourselves in the love of God, the 
love of God will enter into us and fill us. We 
seem to have now but a small measure of this 
divine love in us. We are unloving in our 
own lives. We chafe easily when others irri- 
tate us. We are readily vexed and offended 
and hold grudges and resentments. If God 
were like us, what would become of us ? If he 
were so unforbearing, unforgiving, and un- 
charitable as we are, if he had no more mercy 
on us than we have on those who uninten- 
[105] 



ftnudtg ti^e Wav 



I 



tionally or intentionally hurt us, what would 
become of us? But if we keep ourselves in 
the love of God, all this is changed. The 
love in us transforms us into its own spirit. 
If a bar of iron lies in the fire for a time, 
it becomes red-hot — the fire enters into the 
iron and transfigures it. A lump of clay 
lying on a rose, becomes fragrant — the rose's 
sweetness enters into it. A grain of musk in 
a bureau drawer fills all the garments in the 
drawer with its perfume. If we keep our- 
selves in the love of God, in the atmosphere 
of that love, our whole being becomes satu- 
rated with it until we live as God lives. It was 
written of one Christian man, 

*^His life grew fragrant with the inner soul, 
And weary folk who passed him on the street 
Saw Christ's love beam from out the wistful eyes, 
And had new confidence in God and men J' 

So will it be with all who truly keep them- 
selves in the love of God. Their lives will be 
transformed into the grace and beauty of 
Christ, and the weary ones who see them and 
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9In ti^e lotje of (Boti 



know them will have new faith in God and 
new love for men. 

The love of God is a wonderful refuge to 
those who hide away in it. A favorite picture 
in the Old Testament is the hiding of the 
troubled or hunted life under the wings of the 
Almighty. Saint Paul has a great word 
about the Christian's life being hid with 
Christ in God. This is indeed a marvelous 
hiding — in the heart of Christ, and then in 
this sacred enfolding carried back into the 
infinite depths of deity. Those who flee to 
the love of God for refuge are safe eternally. 
Neither height nor depth nor angel nor prin- 
cipalities nor powers, nor things present nor 
things to come, can separate them from the 
love of God which is in Christ Jesus our 
Lord. 

In this refuge the world's harm never can 
reach us. It was in this divine keeping that 
Christ himself was sheltered that night on 
the sea when he slept on the boat, and the 
wild storm and the mad sweep of the waves 
did not disturb him. He was wrapped in the 
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{fittDing ti^e Wav 



folds of the same love in all the troubled 
hours of his trial and crucifixion. He spoke 
of his peace — nothing ever broke the quiet of 
the calm of his spirit. Then he promises to 
give the same peace, his own peace, to all 
who beheve on him. "My peace I give unto 
you." "In me ye shall have peace." This 
is the benediction of those who keep them- 
selves in the love of God. 



[108] 



Cl^e aiJunDant life 



[109] 



Not him who hath the largest store 

Ingathered of lifers wealth, I praise, 
But him who loveth mankind more 

Than treasure-trove of all his days; 
Who, from the world-wide brotherhood, 

Withholdeth naught of heart and brain — 
Yea, counteth it the highest good 

To show the Christ in man again! 

— James Buckham. 



[ no ] 



! 



! 



CHAPTER TENTH 

Cl^e abuntiant Utt 




HE divine ideal for life is 
health, not sickness; en- 
thusiasm, not languor ; 
branches bending with 
fruit, not covered only 
with leaves. Christ wants 
us to have abundant spiritual life. He is in- 
finitely patient with weakness, but he would 
have us strong. He accepts the smallest ser- 
vice anyone may render, but he desires us to 
serve him with our whole heart. The weakest 
faith has power and gets blessing from him, 
but he is best pleased with the faith that tri- 
umphs over all difficulties and accomplishes 
impossibilities. He does not despise the 
smoking flax, with merely a spark remain- 
ing, — ^he will nourish it till it glows in a hot 
flame; but he wishes us to be burning and 
shining lights. Even a little measure of love 

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pleases him, but he longs for love that fills 
all the being. The spiritual life begins as a 
tiny spring of water bubbling up in our 
hearts, but the Master desires it to grow until 
it becomes rivers of water. He came that his 
followers might have life and might have it 
abundantly. 

The abundant Ufe need not be a showy and 
conspicuous one, nor one that makes much 
noise in the world. Some people suppose that 
they are living to a worthy piupose only 
when they are filling a prominent and con- 
spicuous place among men, doing work which 
draws all eyes to it. They think they are of 
no use if they are not making a stir in the 
world. But there are some whose voices are 
heard widely in the community where they 
dwell and yet have httle in them that pleases 
God. They are "rich in outward incident, 
but poor in inward experience." Or one may 
have an abundant spiritual life, and yet moTe 
among men so quietly as almost to be unheard 
and unknown. It was of our Lord himself 
that it was written in an ancient prophecy, 
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Cl^e aiiuntiant JLtfe 



**He shall not strive j nor cry aloud; 
Neither shall anyone hear his voice in the streets.'* 

No other man ever had such fullness and 
abundance of life as Christ himself had, and 
yet no other ever lived and wrought so quietly. 
Noise is not force. The real power of life is 
in its injfluence, in its force of character, in 
its personality. Many of those who are full- 
est of Christ are least known among men. 
Humility is one of the divinest of graces. One 
asked Augustine what he regarded as the first 
of all Christian virtues. He answered, "Hu- 
mility." "The second.^" He answered, "Hu- 
mility." "And the third.?" "Humility." 
Our Lord put the same quality first in his 
Beatitudes, — "Blessed are the poor in spirit." 
It is the lowly ones of earth who live nearest 
to the heart of Christ and have most of his 
Spirit in them. 

The abundant life need not be known by its 
large money gifts. The tendency is to meas- 
ure every man's value to the world by his 
charities. No doubt money has its value. 
Those who give to education, to religion, to 
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^inDing tl^e Wa^ 



philanthropy, if their gifts are wisely be- 
stowed, greatly bless the world. Nothing 
should be said to chill the ardor of those who 
devote their money to worthy causes. Yet 
money never is the best gift which a man may 
bestow upon his fellows. 

There is a story of a famishing pilgrim in 
the desert who found a sack which he thought 
contained food. When he had eagerly torn 
it open it had in it a great treasure of pearls 
— some man's whole fortune dropped in the 
sands. But he flung it from him in anguish. 
It was food that he wanted, and the bag of 
pearls was only a bitter mockery to his hun- 
ger. There are great human needs which 
money has no power to satisfy, but to which 
a true heart's gentle love will be the very 
bread of God. There are sorrows which 
money cannot soothe, but which a word of 
loving comfort will change into songs. 
So far as we know, Jesus never gave money, 
and yet the world has never known another 
such lavish giver as he was. Imagine him 
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Ci^e abuttDant life 



going about with his hands full of coins and 
dispensing them among the poor, the lame, 
the blind, the sick — money, and nothing else. 
What a poor, paltry service his would then 
have been in comparison with the wonderful 
and gracious ministry of kindness and love 
which he wrought ! 

The abundant life may not have money to 
give and yet it may fill a whole community 
with blessings. It may go out with sym- 
pathy, with comfort, with inspirations of 
cheer and hope, and may make countless 
hearts braver and stronger. We do not know 
the value of the ministry, the influence upon 
others, of a strong, pure, peaceful, victori- 
ous face. A Hindoo woman met on the 
street a missionary who could not speak her 
language and said not a word to her. He 
only looked into her face and pointed upward. 
She hastened home and said that she had seen 
an angel of heaven. The glory of God shone 
on the missionary's countenance. We do not 
know when the joy and the love in our faces 
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iJffnDing tl^e Wa^ 



may put new hope into fainting hearts, and 
make men able to win the victory over depres- 
sion or despondency, or over a great tempta- 
tion. 

The secret of abundant helpfulness is found 
in the desire to be a help, a blessing, to all 
we meet. One wrote to a bereft mother of her 
little one who had gone to heaven: "Gratia 
was in our home only once when but five years 
of age, and yet the influence of her brief stay 
has been filling every day since in all these 
three years, especially in the memory of one 
little sentence which was continually on the 
child's lips wherever she went, 'Can I help 
thee.'^' " We begin to be like Christ only 
when we begin to wish to be helpful. Where 
this desire is ever dominant, the life is an 
unceasing benediction. Rivers of water are 
pouring out from it continually to bless the 
world. One friend could say to another, 

*'/ never crossed your threshold with a grief 
But that I went without it; never came 
Heart-hunger, hut you fed me, eased the blame, 
And gave the sorrow solace and relief 
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Cl^e abuntiant life 



'^/ never left you hut I took away 

The love that drew me to your side again 
Through that wide door that never could remain 
Quite closed between us for a little dayJ^ 

That is what might be the ministry of every 
one of us to others, to all who turn to us with 
their needs, their loneliness, their heart hun- 
gers, their sorrows. We should always have 
bread in our hands to give to those who are 
hungry, and cheer for those who come to us 
fainting and disheartened. Life is but an- 
other way of spelling love. It is more love we 
want when we cry out for the abundant life. 
Nothing but love will answer the great human 
needs about us. Nothing else will make peo- 
ple happier and better. The abundant life 
Christ came to give is simply fullness of love 
in the heart, pulsing out in all the veins. 
How can we have this abundance of life? 
Most of us are conscious of the poverty and 
thinness of our spiritual life. We are not 
strong — we faint easily under our burdens 
and in our struggles. We are not living vic- 
toriously — we are defeated continually and 
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overcome, by everything that assails us, by 
the smallest antagonism and opposition. We 
are not perennial fountains of love, sending 
out streams of the water of life for the re- 
freshing and the renewing of the dreary 
places about us. At the best the streams of 
kindness and beneficence flow in our lives only 
intermittently. We have not much to give to 
the needy, hungry world that looks to us for 
cheer and strength. Men ask bread of us and 
all we have to give them is a stone. They 
come expecting fruit and find nothing but 
leaves. We are not so full of Christ that those 
who touch the hem of our garments feel the 
thrill of life in them and are healed and are 
made happier and better. Our spirits are not 
so charged with the love of God that our 
shadow, as we pass along the way, heals those 
on whom it falls. Our hearts are not so over- 
flowing with a passion for being of use, that 
we involuntarily, unconsciously, impart to 
every one we meet some helpfulness, some 
comfort, some inspiration, some good. 
Evidently it is more of the life of Christ in 
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Ci^e abunnant Life 



us that we need to give us richness of charac- 
ter, influence over others, the power of help- 
fulness, which our Master desires to find in us. 
We may have many other things which are 
desirable and pleasant — we may have money, 
gifts which others envy, places of honor and 
power — our hands may be full also of tasks. 
But lacking this fullness of life, our hearts 
are really empty. There is but little of God, 
of Christ, of heaven, in us. We have nothing 
to give others that would enrich them. Our 
brains may be teeming with plans and proj- 
ects and dreams of success, but of spiritual 
life our veins are scant. It is life we need, — 
life, more life. 

" ^Tis life whereof our nerves are scant ; 
Of life, not death, for which we panty 
More life and fuller that we want.^^ 

Our deepest longing, therefore, and our most 
earnest prayer should be for greater fullness 
of spiritual life. We need it to measure up 
to our Master's ideal and purpose for us. We 
need it, too, to enable us to overcome the 
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world. Our strength is soon exhausted, our 
lamp soon burns out. The good in us is soon 
overpowered by the evil about us. We need 
more of the joy of Christ in us that we may 
be able to master the sorrow that flows in upon 
us from the great world. We need more of 
the love of Christ that we may keep our hearts 
sweet and gracious amid all that makes it 
hard to be gracious, loving and kind. We 
need the fullness of the divine Spirit that we 
may have something worth while to give to 
those who turn to us with their emptiness, their 
hunger, their sorrow. 



[ 120 ] 



Wt ate aWe 



[121] 



'*Lord, let me not he too content 
With life in trifling service spent — 

Make me aspire! 
When days with petty cares are filled, 
Let me with fleeting thoughts he thrilled 

Of something higher, 

*^Help me to long for mental grace 
To struggle with the commonplace 

I daily find. 
May little deeds not hring to fruit 
A crop of little thoughts ^ to suit 

A shrivelled mindj'* 



[122] 



CHAPTER ELEVENTH 

Wt ate able 




HEN Jesus asked his two 
ambitious disciples if they 
were able to drink the cup 
he was about to drink and 
to be baptized with the 
baptism with which he 
was baptized, they said promptly, "We are 
able." Their heroic answer furnishes a noble 
motto for every phase of life. Whatever call 
comes to us, whether it be to sorrow or to 
joy, we should say in quiet confidence, "I am 
able." 

This is a good motto for life in general. Too 
many people shrink from anything that is 
hard. They want only easy tasks. They 
fear to grapple with difficulties. They run 
away from hard battles. They attempt noth- 
ing they know they cannot do easily. They 
never grow into strength, for only in attempt- 
ing hard things can one gain the ability to do 
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fittDing tl^e Wai^ 



things noble and beautiful. The habit of 
giving up easily is a fatal one. It weakens 
the will, paralyzes the energy, and stunts the 
growth of the life. What a man thinks he 
cannot do, he cannot do; but what he thinks 
he can do, he can do. The true man is he who 
can do things that are impossible — anybody 
can do possible things. 

Our answer to every call of duty should be, 
"I am able.'' Whatever we ought to do, we 
can do. "I cannot" is a stunting, dwarfing 
word. Besides, it is a cowardly word. When 
we say it we do not know what we are missing. 
We allow magnificent possibilities to pass by 
and pass out of our reach, , because we think 
we cannot achieve them. One of Emerson's 
poems pictures the days marching on in end- 
less file, bringing gifts in their hands for us 
who miss them because of our poor timidity 
and indolence. 

^^ Daughters of time, the hypocritic Days, 
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, 
And marching single in an endless file, 
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
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Wt ate able 



To each they offer gifts after his willy 

Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them 

all. 
If in my pleached garden, watched the pomp. 
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily 
Took a few herhs and apples, and the Day 
Turned and departed silent. I, too late, 
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.'' 

The poet's picture is true of too many. The 
days come with great gifts in their hands — 
kingdoms, stars, sky, and diadems; we take 
a few herbs and apples, and let the messengers 
move on and vanish, still holding in their 
hands the splendid gifts which might have 
been ours. Many go through life missing 
countless opportunities for noble deeds and 
worthy achievements, only answering to their 
call, "I cannot." 

"I am able" is the only fit reply to make to 
every command and requirement of Christ. 
James and »Iohn did not know what they were 
saying, but they faltered not. Their answer 
showed courage, the courage of the soldier. 
Soldiers never say, "I cannot." They know 
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only to obey. The answer of these men also 
implied love for their Master. They were 
ready to suffer anything for his sake. What 
it would cost them to stand close to him they 
did not know, but whatever the cost would 
be they were ready to pay it. It was also the 
answer of faith. They knew that Jesus was 
the Messiah. What Messiahship meant they 
did not know. They had indeed most con- 
fused ideas upon the subject. Yet they be- 
lieved in him. There always are those who 
have their difBculties with Christian doctrine. 
They cannot understand the teachings con- 
cerning the person and work of Christ. Yet 
they may cling to him and follow him igno- 
rantly, loyal to the uttermost, as James and 
John did. Some day all will become clear. 
One of our poets makes an Oriental who had 
been listening to Jesus of Nazareth, utter 
these strong words, — 

"// Jesus Christ is a man] 
And only a man — / say 
That of all mankind I will cleave to him] 
And to him will I cleave alway, 
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Wt are able 



"// Jesus Christ is a god — 

And the only God — / swear 
I will follow him through heaven and hell. 

The earth, the sea, and the air.*' 

"I am able**^ is always the motto for Christian 
faith. Faith deals with the unseen and in- 
visible. We never know what we are engag- 
ing to do when we pledge ourselves to follow 
Christ unto the end. When Abraham was 
called, he went out, not knowing whither he 
went. In every life there are experiences of 
darkness. When we come up to the edge of 
things we dread, the Master asks, "Are ye 
able to drink my cup.?" That is, "Are you 
able to follow me through this trial, this sor- 
row, this mystery of pain, this great sacri- 
fice.'^" We must remember that the richest 
blessings of grace lie beyond experiences of 
pain. The question of the measure of bless- 
ing and good we are to receive is ofttimes 
another way of putting the question, whether 
we can pay the price or not. "Can you drink 
the cup which I am about to drink.?" If we 
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jfinDing tl^e Wa^ 



cannot, the blessing is beyond our reach. If 
these two men had said, "No ; we are not able 
to drink the cup with thee," what would they 
have missed? There are many who do miss 
life's highest and best blessings because they 
cannot accept the condition. It should help 
our faith and courage in time of sore ques- 
tioning to remember that it is the Master's 
cup we are to drink, and that we are to drink 
it not alone, but with him. Surely we can 
drink any cup with him. 

'^But if himself he come to thee, and stand 
Beside thee, gazing down on thee with eyes 
That smile, and suffer; that will smite thy heart 
With their own pity to a passionate peace; 
And reach to thee himself the holy cup 
(y\/'ith all its wreathen stems of passion flowers 
And quivering sparkles of the ruby stars), 
Pallid and royal, saying, ' Drink with me, ' 
Wilt thou refuse 9 Nay, not for Paradise I 
The pale brow will compel thee, the pure hands 
Will minister unto thee ; thou shall take 
Of that communion through the solemn depths 
Of the dark waters of thine agony, 
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Wt are able 



With heart that praises hirrij that yearns to him 
The closer through that hour. Hold fast his hand 
Though the nails pierce thine too ! take only care 
Lest one drop of the sacramental wine 
Be spilled, of that which ever shall unite 
Thee, soul and body, to thy living Lord J* 

"I am able" is the motto also for service. 
Christian life is a continual call to heroic 
deeds. It is not easy to be the kind of Chris- 
tian Christ wants us to be. We can make life 
easy for ourselves if we will, but this will not 
please Christ. The two disciples wanted first 
places, and first places are never easy to 
fill. Jesus showed them that in his kingdom 
rank meant service. "He that would be first 
among you, must be servant of all." That is 
what it is to be a Christian. The mission of 
the Church is to bless men, to lift up the 
fallen, to succor the tempted, to relieve the dis- 
tressed, to be a friend to the weary, the deso- 
late and the lonely. "Are you able?" There 
is no other way to the high places. There is no 
other way to become a true minister of Christ. 
Four years in a college and three years in a 
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theological seminary will make no young man 
a minister. A Presbytery may license and 
ordain him to preach the gospel after he has 
finished his course, but that will not make him 
a minister. Nothing will make anyone a min- 
ister but drinking Christ's cup and being bap- 
tized with Christ's baptism. Nor will any- 
thing else make one a Christian of the kind 
the Master wants. Uniting with the church 
will not do it. "Are you able to drink of my 
cup.'^ Are you able to put your life into the 
service of men alongside your Master.?" 



[130] 



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[131] 



*^ Labor and rest. 
These are the best 

Blessings that heaven gives; 
And happy he 
Who makes them be 

His gladness while he lives J ^ 

" You must live each day at your very best : 
The work of the world is done by few; 
God asks that a part be done by you,'' 



[ 132] 



CHAPTER TWELFTH 

Co tact^ flDne ^i^ Wot^ 




OME people do not like to 
work. Perhaps it is true 
that the disinclination is 
natural and universal, and 
that we all have to learn 
to like to work. There is 
an impression prevalent that work was part 
of the curse of the fall, that if our first par- 
ents had kept their holy estate in Eden, work 
would not have been necessary. But this im- 
pression is incorrect. When man was created 
he was put into the Garden of Eden to dress 
it and keep it. Work, therefore, was part 
of the blessing of Eden and is part of the 
blessing of all life. It is a means of grace. 
No one can be a good Christian and not do 
anything, unless he is incapacitated in some 
way. Idleness is sin and there is always a 
curse on it. 

Work is part of the plan of God for our 
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sJfinnfng ti^e Wav 



lives. The affairs of the world go on well 
only when everyone is doing his part. To 
each one his particular work is assigned. 
Whether our part is great or small, conspicu- 
ous or obscure, if it is the divine allotment 
for us, it is noble and worthy. The Koran 
tells of Gabriel being sent to earth to do two 
things. One was to keep King Solomon in 
his exultation over his royal steeds from for- 
getting the hour of prayer ; the other was to 
help a little yellow ant on the slope of Ara- 
rat, which had grown weary in getting home 
the food it was bearing. To Gabriel the one 
command seemed as important as the other, 
and the one task as worthy, since God had 
ordained both. 

^'Silently he left 
The Presence and prevented the king's sin 
And holp the little ant at entering in J* 

If our work is divinely allotted nothing is 
unfit for kingliest hands. That which God 
assigns is most worthy. If blacking shoes 
is a man's duty, is the task allotted to him 
[134] 



Co €at}) £)ne l$i^ WotU 

for the time, there is no other work in all the 
world that w.ould be so noble and worthy for 
him that particular day or hour. 
To each one his work is given. None are 
omitted or overlooked in the assignment — no 
one is left without some task. Duties are 
not given to some while others are sent out 
with nothing to do. We are all put into this 
world to work until our days for service here 
are closed. 

" What are we set on earth for? Say, to toil; 
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines, 
For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, 
And death^s mild curfew shall from work assoiV 

To each his own particular work is given. 
Not all have the same task, nor is the distri- 
bution of duties a haphazard one. People 
differ in abilities, and the tasks are suited to 
the hands. If, then, we do not do our own 
allotted work it will not be done, and there 
will be a blank in God's universe where there 
ought to have been a piece of work well done. 
It matters not how small our part is, the 
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ffinDing tl^e Wav 



doing of it perfectly is essential to the com- 
pleteness of the divine plan, and the failure 
to do it well will leave a flaw. 

*^ One small life in God's great plan ! 

How futile it seems as the ages roily 
Do what it may or strive how it can, 

To alter the sweep of the infinite whole ! 
A single stitch in an endless weh, 
A drop in the ocean's flow and ebh ! 
But the pattern is rent where the stitch is lost, 
Or marred where the tangled threads have crossed ; 
And each life that fails of its true intent 
Mars the perfect plan that the Master meant,'' 

What is true of work in general is true of 
Christian work as well. In a sense all work 
is religious. Everything is to be done in the 
name of Christ and for him, and all duty is 
part of God's will for us. Every piece of 
work has a moral value. Either we do it 
right and please God, or we do it indiffer- 
ently and imperfectlj'^, and so sin against 
God. The commonest tasks are as sacred in 
their way as are our prayers and songs of 
praise. Jesus himself was engaged in his 
[136] 



q 



Co tact) €>ne !^(0 Wot^ 

Father's business quite as truly and as ac- 
ceptably when he was working in the carpen- 
ter shop, as when afterwards he was teaching 
and healing the people. 

Yet we all have duties besides those which 
belong to our week-day callings. It is not 
enough for any man to be a carpenter or a 
builder or a merchant or a physician or a 
farmer. Everyone must be, first of all, a 
Christian — Christ's man. We should do our 
secular work for Christ and do it well, but 
we should be a great deal larger than the 
little measure of our week-day occupation, 
and should do far more every day than our 
little stint of common taskwork in the shop 
or in the field. We represent our Master in 
this world and must not slack our diligence 
in the things that he would do for people if 
he were here. 

In our Christian work, then, we should be as 
enthusiastic and as earnest as we are in our 
secular pursuits. If we are conspicuous in 
the world's work we should certainly be no 
less conspicuous in our work for the Master's 
[ 137 ] 




ifinDing tl^e Wav 



kingdom. Few even of the best Christians 
do their best for their Master. Saint Paul 
exhorted his young friend Timothy to stir 
up the gift that was in him. The fire was 
banked up and smoldering when it should 
have been burning brightly. In not many of 
us is the passion for Christian service doing 
its best. 

On all sides the motive of earnestness and 
diligence presses. The natural world teaches 
us the lesson. Every flower that blooms has 
its inspiration for us — we should put beauty 
into everything we do. Every bird that 
sings calls us to live more songfuUy and 
cheerfully. Every wind that blows whispers 
to us of the breath of God and urges us to 
open all our being to its blessed influence. 

'^/ would give up all the mind 
In the prim city^s hoard can find — 
House with its scrap-art bed light, 
Straightened manners of the street, 
Smooth-voiced society — 
// so the swiftness of the wind 
Might pass into my feet; 
[138] 



1 



Co Caci^ €)ne ^t?; a^otfe 

// so the sweetness of the wheat 
Into my soul might pass, 
And the clear courage of the grass ; 
If the lark carolled in my song ; 
If one tithe of the faithfulness 
Of the bird-mother with her brood 
Into my selfish heart might press, 
And make me also instinct good,'' 

It Is true also in the realm of spiritual life 
that everyone has his own work allotted to 
him. There is something for everyone. In 
the building of the wall in Nehemiah's time, 
each man built over against his own house, 
and thus the entire wall was soon repaired. 
We will easily find our work for Christ if 
we will look for it right opposite our own 
door. We never need to journey far away 
to come upon it. The trouble with too many 
is that they pass by the work which is at 
their hand, not dreaming that it is the thing 
given to them to do, and expect to find some- 
thing unusual in some unwonted place. The 
artist who had sought everywhere for some 
fit material for his Madonna found it at last 
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ifintifng ti^e Wai^ 



in a common firelog in the wood-yard. Our 
holiest duties are always near at hand, not 
far oiF. 

Then our work is not what some other one 
is doing, but something which is all our own. 
Paul illustrates this by comparing the church 
to a human body. There are many members 
in a body and each has its own distinct func- 
tion. If we had only hands, or if our body 
were all feet or all hands, we would be only 
monstrosities. So if all men were fishermen 
or all were farmers or all were lawyers, there 
would be no society. In the line of spiritual 
work there is also the widest diversity of 
things to be done, and if we all had the same 
gift, with ability for doing just one thing, 
how could the great field of duty be covered.'^ 
But there are diversities of gifts, so that no 
place shall be left unfilled, so that for no task 
there shall be a hand lacking. "To each one 
his work." 

A man may not have the gift of eloquence 

and may almost envy another whose speech 

is winning. But the man of slow speech may 

[ 140 ] 



1 



have power in prayer. Adelaide Procter 
gives a legend of a monk who preached with 
great power. In those who heard, sorrow 
and love and good resolve awoke. A poor 
lay brother, sitting on the pulpit stairs, re- 
joiced as he saw how the eloquent words of 
the monk moved men. The monk himself 
praised God that his words were used, that 
hearts were melted, and lives led up to 
heights of loving sacrifice. 

" So prayed the monk : when suddenly he heard 
An angel speaking thus : ^ Know, my son, 
Thy words had all been vain; but hearts were stirred, 

And saints were edified, and sinners won, 
By his, the poor lay brother's humble aid. 

Who sat upon the pulpit stairs and prayed,' " 

We need never envy anyone the gift he pos- 
sesses. That is his gift, and we have our 
own. Ours may not seem as great or as im- 
portant as his, but that need not concern us. 
We are responsible only for what God has 
given us, and all we have to do is to make 
the fullest possible use of it. If another's 
[141] 



finding ti^e Wa^ 



gift is more brilliant than ours, the other 
has a greater responsibility than we have, 
and we need not envy him. Besides, we dq 
not know what particular gift is most im- 
portant, what kind of work ranks highest 
with God or does most for the upbuilding of 
Christ's kingdom. Perhaps it means more 
to be able to pray well than to speak well. 
Power with God may be a mightier factor in 
doing good than power over men. It may 
be that the quietest people, who are not often 
heard of, who work obscurely and without 
fame, are quite as well known in heaven and 
as highly honored as those who are in con- 
spicuous positions and receive praise from 
men. 

We please God best and do the best work 
in the world when we cheerfully accept our 
place, however lowly, and do sweetly and as 
well as we can the work which God gives us 
to do. It ought to Impart zest to the hum- 
blest calling to know that it is the will of 
God for us and that that and not something 
else is our part in the divine allotment of 
[142] 



Co €act^ flDne f (0 Woth 

duty. There can be nothing greater in this 
world for anyone than the doing of God's 
will. We make the most of our life when 
we accept our own place and do well our own 
work. We work then with God and we shall 
not fail either of his help or of his reward. 

"// there be good in that I wrought, 

Thy hand compelled it, Master — thine. 
Where I have failed to meet thy thought, 
I know, through thee, the blame is mine. 

''One instant's toil to thee denied 
Stands all eternity's offense; 
Of what I did with thee to guide, 
To thee, through thee, be excellence, 

''One stone the more swings to her place 
In that dread temple of thy worth ; 
It is enough that through thy grace 
1 saw naught common on thy earth," 



[ 143] 



jC^ne Cluing 3i ^o 



[145] 



^^Her prayer-hooks had repose, 
One word her heart sufficed. 
Scent of a hidden rose : 
Christ! 

" To creeds her soul was shut, 
For her confession of 
The Christian faith was hut 
Love. 

** She craved no temple-wall. 
Between the sky and sod 
Her happy world was all 
God.'' 



[146] 



CHAPTER THIRTEENTH 



flDne Cl^fng 91 J^o 



\ 




HERE is a great deal of 
waste in all lines of life, 
because men scatter their 
energies over too wide a 
field. Instead of doing 
one thing well, they do a 
dozen things indifferently. No one is great 
enough to do everything. In the arts and 
professions men are more and more becom- 
ing specialists. Even ordinary ability would 
be sure of success if it found its true place 
and then devoted itself wholly to its work. 
Though a man may fail again and again, if 
he persists and never becomes discouraged, he 
will at last succeed. 



^ Blest is the man of high ideals. 
Who fails to-day, to-morrow, and for days to come, 
But never lowers his standards, nor surrenders to 
defeat, 

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jftnDing tl^e l^at 



Till hand and foot, till eye and ear. 

Till vocal cord and tongue, 

Till mind and heart are disciplined, 

And all abilities of body and of sovl 

Are marshalled by the Will 

And move onward to the drumbeat of perfections^ 

There is a remarkable direction in our Lord's 
instruction to the Seventy. Among other 
things, he bade them salute no man by the 
way. The salutations of those days were 
tedious and required much time, and the 
errands on which his messengers were sent 
were urgent and required haste. Not a mo- 
ment must be lost on the way. When a dis- 
ciple begged to be allowed to bury his father 
before going on his errand, the Master re- 
fused the request. The dead could bury 
their own dead, and he must hasten to carry 
the gospel message. 

If we would concentrate all our energies in 
one purpose, we should do all our work bet- 
ter. We would then always do our best, 
even in the commonest things of our daily 
taskwork. If we are writing only a postal- 
[148] 



€)ne Ci^fng 91 ?^o 



card to a friend, we will do it as carefully 
as if we were writing a letter of greatest 
importance. We would gather all the forces 
of our heart into the simplest kindness we 
show to anyone. There are authors who have 
written one or two books of great interest 
and value and then have grown indifferent, 
doing nothing more worth while. They were 
too well satisfied with their early success or 
a little praise turned their heads, and they 
never did their best again. 

" // at -first you do succeed, 

Try again ! 
Life is more than just one deed ; 

Try again. 
Never stop with what you^ve done. 
More remains than you have won. 
Full contends vouchsafed to none ; 

Try again ! 

An old painter, after standing long in silent 
meditation before his canvas, with hands 
crossed meekly on his breast and his head 
bent reverently, said, "May God forgive me 
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finDing tJ^z Wav 



that I did not do it better." There are many 
of us who ought to have the same experience 
of penitence as we contemplate the things 
we have done. We should continually im- 
plore forgiveness for doing our work so 
poorly, for we are not doing our best. If 
only we would learn to put all the energy 
of our souls into each piece of work we do, 
we should make a radiant record for our- 
selves. 

In our Christian life we should seek only one 
thing — the attainment of the highest reaches 
in character and service. If an absorbing 
passion for Christ ruled us, it would bring 
all our life into harmony with itself. A 
friend gave a college student a pure, inspir- 
ing and elevating picture, and asked him to 
hang it up in his room and keep it there for 
one year. The young man promised to do 
so. But he cared more for worldly things, 
for a good time, than for his studies. Then 
he was not as careful as he should have been 
about his pleasures. The friend was in the 
student's room one day and saw the picture 
[ 150 ] 



flDne Cluing 31 ^o 



on the wall, in a place of honor, but clustered 
about it were many common sporting prints, 
some of them of a questionable character. 
The beautiful picture in the center seemed 
strangely out of place in such unhallowed 
company. Yet the young man appeared en- 
tirely unaware of anything unfit in the set- 
ting, as he spoke very gratefully of his 
friend's beautiful gift. 

Six months later, however, the friend was 
again in the student's room. There was the 
picture still in its honored place on the wall, 
but all the questionable prints were gone, and 
in place of them hung other pictures, pure, 
refining and beautiful, all of them in har- 
mony with the picture in the center. The 
friend manifested much pleasure as he looked 
about the room and saw the transformation. 
The young man said in explanation, "You 
see, I couldn't leave those foolish things there 
beside that" — pointing to the other's gift. 
"The contrast was too dreadful. At first I 
didn't see it, but looking at your lovely pic- 
ture opened my eyes to the unfitness of the 
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fmtitng ti^e Wav 



others, and I took them all down and burned 
them. Then I bought other pictures to hang 
up in their place, but they all had to be pure 
and good, and in harmony with the one in the 
center." 

It is always thus when Christ is taken into 
the chief place in the life. Everything that 
is not in harmony with his peerless beauty 
must go out, and only the things that are 
in keeping with the mind and spirit of Christ 
can have a place in the life. 
When Christ becomes really the one thing of 
our lives, there is less and less of living for 
self, and more and more of consecration to 
the service of love. Some people suppose 
that holiness separates a man from his fel- 
lows, that as he becomes really Hke Christ 
he grows out of touch and sympathy with 
people, less interested in their human affairs, 
less gentle, less kindly, less human, less ac- 
cessible, less helpful. But it is not the re- 
ligion of Christ that produces such results. 
Never did any other man get so near to peo- 
ple as Christ himself did. He lived among 
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€)ne Ci^tng 91 ^o 



them; they loved him and trusted him, and 
they told him everything. When Christ 
truly enters a man, one of the unmistakable 
marks of his indwelling is the new love that 
begins to appear in the man's life. His re- 
ligion made Saint Paul a friend of man, 
eager to help everyone he met. When Christ 
really gets possession of a heart, the sweet 
flowers of love begin to grow in the life. If 
we are not becoming more patient, more glad- 
hearted, more charitable, more kindly, more 
thoughtful, if there is not in us an increas- 
ing desire to help others, to do themx good, 
we need to pray for more of the love of God 
in our hearts. We may tell people that 
Christ is still in this world, coming close to 
them in their needs, but he is here only as 
he lives in us. He has no other present in- 
carnation but in the lives of his friends. 
He helps the suffering, the toiling folk, the 
hungry-hearted, the weak, the sorrowing, but 
only through us. We are likest to Christ 
when we are nearest to the hearts of men, 
when our sympathies are widest, when we are 
[153] 



ifintiing ti^e Wa^ 



the gentlest, when our hands are readiest to 
minister. 

If in our hearts is the great master-purpose 
to live for Christ only, we will grow con- 
tinually away from all that is worldly and 
unworthy, toward things that are spiritual 
and divine. Saint Paul describes himself as 
forgetting the things that are behind and 
stretching forward to the things that are be- 
fore. Some people never leave anything be- 
hind them. At least they forget nothing 
that they should forget. They never forget 
an injury. They never outgrow childish 
things. 

The life that is under the full dominance and 
sway of Christ is ever unfolding new beauty, 
and growing into holier, sweeter, humaner, 
diviner character and into larger, fuller use- 
fulness. For while the beauty of Christ 
becomes more and more manifest in the 
personal life, the influence of Christ is 
manifested more and more distinctly in the 
impression made on the world. If our citi- 
zenship is truly in heaven we will carry the 
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€)ne Cluing 91 3^0 



atmosphere of heaven with us wherever we 
go, and heavenly flowers and fruits will grow 
about us which but for us would not have 
been there. There is no more infallible test 
of the reality and the power of our spiritual 
life than in the measure of heaven we bring 
down into this world's life. George Klingle 
puts this well in a little poem, 

Is the world better or worse where I tread f 
What have I done in the years that are dead f 
What have I left on the way as I passed — 
Foibles to perish j or blessings to last 9 
Whose is the love-voice I hear as I go? 
Whom do I follow through weal and through woe f 
Of what is my sword-blade — of gold or of dross f 
What is my standard — the world or the cross f 
How do I choose when the hearths sacred cry 
Crosses the will of my Christ? — bid it die P 
What do I do when the world's flowers are sweet— 
Stop in my race for the flowers at my feet f 
Where are my scars from — siege upon siege, 
Loyally fought in the cause of my liege 9 
What is my watchword, my passport, to show 
The cause I contend for, the way that I go? 
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^intiim t^t Wav 



Are my steps onward, forever ahead , 
Never turned back to some hope sin has fed f 
Am I a soldier, and what is my aim f 
Have I left in my footprints the light of ChrisVs 
name f 



[156] 



at Cl^r ^OtD,31 ^Ul 



[157] 



So oft the doing of God's will 

Our foolish ways undoeth! 
And yet what idle dream breaks ill 

Which morning light suhdueth ? 
And who would murmur and misdoubt. 
When God's great sunrise finds him out? 

— E. B. Browning. 



[158] 



CHAPTER FOURTEENTH 

at Cl^r ^orD,91 Will 




HE divine will settles every- 
thing of duty. When we 
know surely what our Mas- 
ter would have us do, there 
is no longer the slightest 
question as to what we 
should do. All we have to do then is to obey. 
We have nothing to do with the expediency 
or the inexpediency of the command, with 
the determining of its wisdom or unwisdom, 
with the question of its possibility or im- 
possibility. 

When the Master bade Peter push out into 
the deep and let down his nets for a draught, 
the old fisherman promptly answered, "At 
thy word, I will." He had learned the first 
lesson in discipleship — prompt, cheerful, un- 
questioning obedience. According to ordi- 
nary fishing rules nothing would come from 
obeying this command. Yet Peter did not 
[159] 



ifinDing ti^e Wa^ 



think of that. The word of the Master had 
supreme authority with him. It could not pos- 
sibly be mistaken. No appeal from it was to 
be considered for a moment. So Peter an- 
swered unhesitatingly, "At thy word, I will." 
Peter's example is to be followed in every case 
by the Master's friends. The question of hu- 
man judgment or opinion is not to be consid- 
ered when Christ speaks. The best human 
wisdom is fallible and may easily be mistaken. 
Men in authority may make mistakes of judg- 
ment by which those who are required to fol- 
low their direction shall be compelled to suffer 
harm or loss. On a battlefield a general's mis- 
take may result in the sacrifice of many lives. 
Somebody blundered and the six hundred rode 
into the valley of death. Of ttimes bad advice 
has wrecked destinies. Even those who love 
us most truly may err in the counsel they give 
us, and may lead us Into paths which are not 
good. 

Many people suffer from the ignorance of 

those whom they trust as guides. But in 

Jesus Christ we have a Leader who never 

[160] 



at m^v ^ot:ii,3i Will 

errs in wisdom. He never gives wrong ad- 
vice. He is never mistaken in his decision as 
to what we ought to do. We are absolutely 
sure that his commands are both right and 
wise. Our own opinion and judgment may 
be against what he bids us do. It may seem 
to us from the human and earthly side that 
the course on which he is taking us can lead 
only to disaster. In such cases, it is an im- 
measurable comfort to us to know that his 
biddings are always absolutely infallible. 
When he bids us cast our nets in any par- 
ticular place, we may be perfectly sure that 
we shall draw them up full. 
Many of the things our Master calls us to 
do or to endure, do not seem to our eyes at 
the time the best things. Much of our life is 
disappointment. Sorrow comes ofttimes with 
its hot tears, its emptyings of the heart, its 
pain and bitterness. We do not know, when 
we set out on any bright, sunny path, into 
what experiences we shall be led. About a 
dozen years ago, a noble young man married 
a sweet, beautiful girl. They were very 
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finning tl^e Wav 



happy. Life began for them in a garden of 
roses. Only three bright years had passed, 
however, when the young wife broke down in 
health. She has been an invalid ever since, 
much of the time unable to leave her room. 
The burden has been a very heavy one for the 
husband, requiring continual self-denial and 
sacrifice, besides the grief and anxiety it has 
brought. 

That was not the life these two dreamed of 
on their wedding morning. They thought 
only of gladness and prosperity. It never 
occurred to them that sickness or any trouble 
could break into their paradise. But the 
Master has made no mistake. Even already, 
to those who have watched their lives and 
noted the fruit of the suffering in them, it is 
becoming apparent that love and goodness 
are written in all the painful lines of the long 
story. The young man has been growing 
all the years in strength, in gentleness, in 
purity of spirit, in self-control, in the peace 
of God, and in all manly qualities. It seemed 
a strange place to bid him cast his nets — 
[162] 



at c]^i? ^otD, 9) mil 

into the deep waters of disappointment — but 
he is now drawing them full of rich blessing 
and good. 

Here is another story of wedded life. A gen- 
tle girl was married to a young man of much 
promise. But soon the bright promise faded. 
The prosperous circumstances which it was 
thought were secure against any possible 
vicissitude were suddenly interrupted and the 
accumulation of years, the fruit of hard toil, 
was gone. Then the husband's health failed 
and times of pinching want followed. The 
young wife has had little in these years but 
trial and sorrow. 

There are those who would question the wis- 
dom of the Master in leading her into all this 
experience of pain and suffering. We can- 
not understand it. We cannot read the divine 
love in the strange writing, yet we know that 
the words really must spell love as the angels 
read them. To infinite wisdom, the way of 
sorrow seemed the best way for the adorning, 
the enriching, the ennobling and the perfect- 
ing of that beautiful life. Sunshine is not 
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finDing tl^e Wa^ 



all the fields and gardens need to make them 
beautiful ; they must have clouds and rain as 
well, or they would be parched and withered. 
It is so also with human lives. Prosperity 
and happiness are not the only experiences 
that bring blessing. 

"/5 it raining, little flower? 

Be glad of rain. 
Too much sun would wither thee ; 

^Twill shine again. 
The sky is very Mack, His true; 
But just behind it shines the blue, 

" Art thou weary, tender heart f 

Be glad of pain ! 
In sorrow sweetest things will grow 

As flowers in rain, 
God watches ; and thou wilt have the sun. 
When clouds their perfect work have done,*' 

We may always say to Christ, whatever his 
bidding may be, whatever he asks us to do or 
to suffer, into whatsoever mystery or trial or 
pand he may lead us, "At thy word, I will." 
There need never be any smallest exception 
[164] 



to this obedience. Though to our narrow, 
Hmited vision it seems that only hurt and loss 
can come to us out of the experience, still 
we may heed and obey the voice that calls and 
commands, knowing that in spite of all seem- 
ing ill, there must be blessing and good in 
the end. We need never question the divine 
wisdom. Who are we that we could know 
better than God what we need, what will 
bring to us the truest good.^ Always God's 
will is perfect, and we may implicitly, un- 
questioningly, accept it, knowing that the 
outcome will be blessing. 
This makes the way of life very plain and 
simple. We have only one thing to do — to 
obey Christ. In whatever way his will is 
made known to us, whether in his word, 
through our own consciences, or in his provi- 
dences, we have but to accept it and do it. 
It may mean the setting aside of cherished 
plans, the giving up of things that are dear- 
est to us, a life of pain and suffering, but in 
any case it is ours to obey without question. 
Then we may fix it unalterably in our belief 
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fintiing ti^e Wa^ 



that there never can be any mistake in our 
Master's guidance. Obedience always leads 
to blessing. It cannot be otherwise, since God 
is God and his name is love. Christ cannot 
fail to keep his smallest word. The universe 
would fall to wreck if he did. "Heaven and 
earth shall pass away, but my word shall not 
pass away." Some day we shall know that 
the end of all our Lord's commands, all his 
leadings, is good. The truth is put well in 
the oft-quoted lines, 

^^ Sometime J when all lifers lessons have been learned 
And sun and stars forevermore have set, 
The things which our weak judgments here have 
spurned, 
The things o^er which we grieved with lashes wet, 
Will flash before us, out of life's dark night, 

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue; 
And we shall see how all God's plans are right, 
And how what seemed reproof was love most true. 

" Then be content, poor heart, 

God's plans like lilies pure and white unfold. 
We mu^t not tear the close-shut leaves apart, 
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold, 

[166] 



And ^7, through patient toily we reach the land 
Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest, 

When we shall clearly see and understand, 
I know that we will say, ^God knew the best,'^^ 



[167] 



Ci^e ^ntv of pita^in^ m}^m 



[169] 



^They are such little, simple things to do, — 

To sweep a room, to hake a loaf of bread. 
Kiss a hurt finger, tie a haby^s shoe, 

To mend a crying schoolboy^s broken sled, — 

'Such little, simple things! but they above 
Who on our little world attendant wait, 

And joyful wait, note only if through love 

The deed be done to count the icork as great." 



[170] 



CHAPTER FIFTEENTH 




OME persons are not accus- 
tomed to think of pleas- 
ing others as a duty. We 
have been trained to think 
of what is right and just 
in our relations to others, 
without reference to the effect our words or 
conduct may have upon them. But there is 
no reason why we should not do the things 
that are right and at the same time seek to 
please those with whom we are dealing. 
Saint Paul says, "Let each one of us please 
his neighbor for that which is good, unto 
edifying." We are to please our neighbor 
for his good. We must not think of grati- 
fying his whims, of feeding his vanity, or 
of nourishing his self-conceit. This would 
not be to "please him for that which is good." 
A great many people are hurt irreparably by 
insincere flattery. They may be pleased in 
[171] 



ffnDing tl^e Wa^ 



a sense, but it is not for their good. They 
are puffed up by it, encouraged to think 
more highly of themselves than they ought 
to think. We can do no greater unkindness 
to another than to stimulate his self-conceit. 
Yet one of the temptations of good nature is 
to be insincere and even untruthful in com- 
mending others. 

But it is not this kind of pleasing that Saint 
Paul had in mind. It must be for the per- 
son's good, his growth in character, and then 
it must be genuine and altogether true. The 
duty of pleasing others is part of the great 
lesson of love. If we love our neighbor we 
will desire to give him pleasure, to make him 
happy. We get the lesson from our Master, 
and in his life love blossomed out in all its 
perfection. Christ never sacrificed truth, was 
never insincere, and yet his speaking to men 
was always marked by kindliness. He was 
never brusque in his speech. He never lost 
his temper nor spoke in anger. He reproved 
men's sins and faults, but when he did this 
his tones were quiet and his voice was full of 
love. [ 172 ] 



If we love others as Christ loves them, we 
will seek always to please them. We will 
never speak superciliously. We will never re- 
veal vanity or self-conceit in our intercourse 
with those about us. There is a way of criti- 
cising and reproving that is offensive and im- 
pertinent. Love gives us no right to judge 
and condemn. It does not authorize us to 
watch others or to treat them censoriously. 
If we have love in our hearts we will seek to 
save others from sin, to restrain them from 
wrongdoing, but we will do even these serv- 
ices in lowliness and love, so as to win and 
not to lose those we reprove. Humility will 
mark our every word and act. We will al- 
ways be gentle and kind, speaking in love 
when we must say anything unpleasant, any- 
thing that will give pain. 
Another reason we should seek to please 
others is that everyone needs encouragement 
and cheer. It is possible for us so to bear 
ourselves in our relations to others as to make 
life harder for them. On the other hand, we 
have the power of adding immeasurably to 
[173] 



^inDtitg tl^e Wa^ 



the strength, the cheer, and the energy of 
others about us. Words of encouragement 
are wondrous inspirations. An artist said 
that his mother's kiss made him a painter. 
That is, when she saw his crude work and 
thought she detected in it indications of 
genius, instead of laughing at what he had 
done, she kissed her boy with encouragement 
and gave him an impulse which sent him on 
his way with energy and hope. 
But children are not the only persons who 
need encouragement and are pleased and 
helped by words of appreciation. We never 
get too old or too high up in our work to be 
cheered and stimulated by sincere commenda- 
tion. When we read a book that helps us, 
no matter how distinguished the author may 
be, we will please him and do him a real kind- 
ness if we will write him a few words of grate- 
ful recognition, telling him how his book has 
helped us. When the preacher has spoken 
earnestly and his words have given us cheer, 
or comfort, light on some dark problem, or 
help in some perplexity, however great he may 
[174] 



Cl^e ?^utt of pita^inq, ^ti^etjj 

be, however praised among men, a word of 
encouragement from the humblest person in 
his audience will send a glow of warmth and 
cheer into his heart — pleasing him for his 
good. 

It is of the good of the person we are to 
think. Edifying means building up. This 
is always the motive of love. Envy seeks to 
harm another, to take away from his honor, 
to check him in his progress, to tear down 
what he has built up. But love thinks always 
of the good of the person, and of how his 
best interests may be advanced. We have an 
errand to everyone whose life we touch. We 
are sent from God with a blessing to him. 
We may not know what our mission is, what 
the good is that we are to do for him, but 
love will find something to do for him which 
will make him a better and a happier man. 
The true Christian way of relating ourselves 
to those about us is this — to be ready always 
to give any help that may be needed. 
The idea of help does not have in mind merely 
material aid. Ofttimes the last thing we 
[175] 



^inDing tl^e Wav 



should do for one in need is to help him by 
relieving him of his load, by doing the hard 
task for him, by giving him money. In the 
miracle at the Beautiful Gate the apostles 
had no money to give, but what they gave 
was better than money. We must not think 
that none need love's ministries but those who 
are in some physical distress or in some great 
sorrow. Many who reveal no tokens of suf- 
fering are yet sufferers. Grief does not al- 
ways wear weeds of mourning. There are 
hungry-hearted ones who need love and sym- 
pathy. There are those who are misunder- 
stood, to whom a word of confidence would 
impart strength. There are discouraged peo- 
ple to whom a glad, welcoming face is a 
heavenly benediction, full of inspiration for 
them. 

We cannot estimate the value of our influ- 
ence as helpers of those who need help. We 
must seek to please them in ways that will 
make them stronger, truer, better. There is 
a great deal of unfit comforting of others by 
those who think only of pleasing, not of 
[176] 



helping. There is a kind of sympathy which 
only makes one weaker and less able to en- 
dure. The word comfort means to strengthen. 
We have comforted a sorrowing one only 
when we have made him stronger. The Holy 
Spirit is called the Comforter. The name 
means one who stands by another. Standing 
by means comradeship. We may not give the 
person anything. We may not do anything 
at all which can be regarded as a favor, but 
the mere fact of our standing by him in 
strong friendship is of incalculable value to 
him. That was what Jesus hoped of his 
friends in Gethsemane. They could not help 
him in any way — he must drink the cup him- 
self ; but if they were near by him in love 
and companionship, this alone would make 
him stronger. 

Our helping of others must not be too insist- 
ent. We must respect the individuality of 
those to whom we would be friends. There 
is danger that even love will be officious some- 
times, and reveal its eagerness in ways which 
will take away much of its value. People do 
[177] , 



fintitng tl^e Wav 



not like to be helped in a conscious or pro- 
fessional way. The help must be the help of 
love itself and must be given simply, quiet- 
ly, gently, unostentatiously. It must never 
intermeddle. When we stand by one who is 
in sorrow, the fewer words we speak the bet- 
ter. There is altogether too much talking 
in many cases by those who are sincerely 
eager to help. The best service we can give 
to those who are in grief is to lead them into 
the presence of Christ and leave them there 
alone with him. 

A strong, quiet face, telling of peace and joy 
in the heart, is in itself a benediction. On 
the other hand, a gloomy and discouraged 
face hurts everj^one who looks upon it, leaves 
a shadow upon other hves, and makes them a 
little less fit for the struggles, the tasks, and 
the duties before them. 

If we are wise, we will avoid all display in 
efforts to please others. We will simply seek 
to be our natural selves, with sincere love, 
with patience, thoughtfulness, and kindliness 
in our spirits. We will not talk about it — 
. [ITS] 



Ci^e H^uti^ of pita^in^ €>ti^erjs 

talking about it spoils everything. The best 
good is done always when we wist not that 
we are doing good. The greatest help is 
given to others when they wist not that they 
are being helped. 

The Duchess of Kent was a richly endowed 
woman and was universally beloved. Once 
the Princess Alice, herself simple, sweet and 
unspoiled, asked her: "What makes everyone 
love to be with you.^ I am always so sorry 
to have to leave you, and so are all the others 
who come here. What is the secret, grand- 
mamma .f^" 

It was not easy for the noble woman to an- 
swer such a personal question. But it was 
important that it should be answered for the 
sake of her who had asked it and who was 
indeed hungry to know the secret. So the 
noble lady gave this memorable answer: 
"I was early instructed that the way to make 
people happy was to appear interested in the 
things that interested them, namely, their 
own affairs ; and that this could be accom- 
plished only by burying one's own grief, an- 
[179] 



f 



finning ti^e Wai^ 



noyance, satisfaction, or joy completely out 
of sight. Forgetfulness of one's own con- 
cerns, my dear, a smiling face, a word of 
sympathy or unselfish help, where it is pos- 
sible to give it, will always make others 
happy, and the giver equally so." 



[180] 



Cl^e pviUlt^t of buffeting 



[181 ] 



There was a scar on yonder mountain-side y 

Gashed out where once the cruel storm had trod; 

A barren, desolate chasm, reaching wide 
Across the soft green sod. 

Bui years crept by beneath the purple pines, 

And veiled the scar with grass and moss once more, 

And left it fairer now with flowers and vines 
Than it had been before. 

There was a wound once in a gentle heart. 

Whence all lifers sweetness seemed to ebb and die; 

And love's confiding changed to bitter smart. 
While slow, sad years went by. 

Yet as they passed, unseen an angel stolen 
And laid a balm of healing on the pain, 

Till love grew purer in the heart made whole, 
And peace came back again. 

— Mabel Earle. 



[ 182 ] 



CHAPTER SIXTEENTH 

Ci^e ^rttiileije of buffering 




NE of the most difficult 
duties of Christian hfe is 
to endure wrong patiently 
and sweetly. Yet many 
persons have to learn the 
lesson. There are none 
who do not, sometime or other, suffer un- 
justly. Strength ought to be gentle, but 
there are strong men who use their strength 
brutally. Power ought to be paternal, but 
there .are those possessing power who exercise 
it tyrannically. Justice is not a universal 
quality among men. There are many who 
are misjudged or misunderstood. There are 
those who for kindness receive unkindness. 
There are those who repay self-sacrifice and 
love with ingratitude and neglect. There are 
good men who suffer for their goodness. 
[ 183] 



ftntitng tl^e Wa^ 



Much of our Master's teacliing has to do 
with this experience. One of the Beatitudes 
tells of the blessedness of the meek, those who 
endure wrong patiently, without complain- 
ing. Another tells of the happiness or bless- 
edness of those who are persecuted for right- 
eousness' sake. In another teaching the Mas- 
ter bids us turn the other cheek to liim who 
smites us on one, to love our enemies, and to 
pray for those who persecute us. The les- 
son of the forgiveness of injuries and of all 
wrongs done to us is taught over and over 
again, and to make it still more emphatic 
and essential is Hnked with the divine for- 
giveness of us, so that we cannot ask God to 
forgive us without at the same time solemnly 
pledging ourselves to forgive those who sin 
against us. 

All our Lord's lessons he hved liimself, illus- 
trating them in his own obedience. We say 
we want to be Uke Clirist, to live as he Hved. 
When we begin to think what this means we 
shall find that a large part of Christ's life 
was the enduring of wrong. He was never 
[184] 



a 



welcome in this world. "He came unto his 
own, and his own received him not." He was 
the love of God incarnate, coming to men 
with mercy and with heavenly gifts, only to 
be rejected and to have the door shut in his 
face. The enmity deepened as the days 
passed, until at the last he was nailed on a 
cross. Yet we know how our Master bore all 
this wrong and injury. On his trial, under 
false accusation, he held his peace, answering 
nothing to the charges made against him. 
On the cross his anguish found vent not in im- 
precations upon his enemies, nor even in out- 
cries of pain, but in a prayer of love, 
"Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." 

There was not a moment in all our Lord's 
life when there was the slightest bitterness of 
feeling in his breast. No resentment ever 
found an instant's lodgment in his heart. 
His answer to all the unkindness, the enmity, 
the plottings, the denials, the treason, and to 
all the cruelty, the brutal accusations, and the 
terrible wrongs inflicted upon him, was — love. 
[185] 



^ntiing ti^e Wav 



Thus it is that we should bear all that is un- 
just, unkind and wrong in the treatment that 
we receive from others. We are to keep love 
in our hearts through it all. A summer tour- 
ist writes of a spring as sweet as any that 
ever gushed from the sunny hillsides, which 
one day he found by the sea, when the tide 
had ebbed away. Then the sea rolled in and 
poured its bitter floods over the little spring, 
hiding it out of sight, wrapping it in a 
shroud of brackish waters. But when the tide 
ebbed away again the spring was still pour- 
ing up its sweet stream, with no taste of the 
sea's bitterness in it. Such a spring should 
the love in our hearts be. Though floods 
of unkindness and of wrong pour over us, 
however cruelly we may be treated by the 
world, and whatever unkindness or injustice 
we may have to endure from others, the well 
of love in our bosom should never retain a 
trace of the bitterness, but should be always 
sweet. 

The world cannot harm us if we thus live. 

The things that hurt and scar our lives are re- 

[186] 



sentment, unforgivingness, bitter feeling, de- 
sire for revenge. Men may beat us until all 
our bones are broken, but if love fails not in 
our hearts meanwhile, we have come through 
the experience unharmed, with no marks of 
injury upon us. One writing of a friend 
who was dreadfully hurt in a runaway acci- 
dent says that the woman will be probably 
scarred for life, and then goes on to speak 
of the wondrous patience in her suffering 
and of the peace of God that failed not in 
her heart for a moment. The world may hurt 
our bodies, but if we suffer as Christ suffered 
there will be no trace of scarring or wound- 
ing in our inner Ufe. 

We may learn from our Master how to endure 
wrong so as not to be hurt by it. "When 
he suffered, he threatened not ; but committed 
himself to him* that judgeth righteously!" 
He did not take the righting of his wrongs 
into his own hands. He had power and could 
have summoned legions of angels to fight for 
him, but he did not lift a finger in his own 
defence. When Pilate spoke to Jesus of his 
[187] 



^inUm tl^t Wav 



power to crucify or release him, Jesus said, 
a "Thou wouldst have no power against me, 

except it were given thee from above." God 
could build a wall of granite about us, if he 
would, so that no enemy can touch us. He 
could shield us so that no power on earth, 
can do us any hurt. He could dehver us 
from every enemy. We should remember when 
we are suffering injury or injustice at the 
hand of othei^s, that God could have pre- 
vented it. He could have held back the hand 
that it should not touch us. He could have 
ordered that no harm should be done to us, 
that we should suffer no injury. 
This wrong that you are suffering, whatever 
it is, is therefore from God, something he 
permits to come to you. It is not an acci- 
dent, a lawless occurrence, something that has 
broken away from the divine control, some- 
thing that God could not prevent breaking 
into your life. In nature not a drop of water 
in the wildest waves of the sea ever gets away 
from the leash of law. Law reigns every- 
where, in things small and great. 
[188] 



" The very law that molds a tear 

And bids it trickle from its source ; 
That law preserves the earth a sphere, 
And guides the planets in their course,*' 

The same is as true of events, of men's ac- 
tions, as it is of matter. God's hand is in 
all things. Some one oppresses you, deals 
with you unjustly. God permits it, and this 
means that a good, a blessing, shall come out 
of the suffering. It may be a good for you. 
What you are called to endure may be de- 
signed to make you better, holier, richer in 
life and character, gentler-spirited, more pa- 
tient. It is well for us to think of this when 
a wrong has been done to us by another. We 
may leave to God the matter of the evil com- 
mitted against us. It is against him far more 
than against us, and he will judge in the 
matter. Our only concern should be to get 
the lesson or the good there is in it for our- 
selves. 

Or the suffering we have to endure may be 

for the sake of others. God permitted the 

terrible crime against his Son for the good 

[189] 



^tnnmg ti^e Wav 



of the world. Human redemption came out 
of it. When he permits us to suifer for 
righteousness' sake, we are in a Httle meas- 
ure sharing the sufferings of Christ, and out 
of it all will come something to make the 
world better. Saint Paul speaks of being 
crucified with Christ. When some one has 
treated us unkindlj^, wrongfully, it is a com- 
fort to think that in a small way, at least, 
we are being crucified with Christ and that 
blessing and enriching will come to the world 
from our suffering. 

We dread suffering in any form. It seems 
to us something evil which can only work 
harm. Yet the truth is that many of God's 
best benedictions and holiest mercies come to 
us in the garb of pain. We dread especially 
the suffering that men's wrong or cruelty 
brings upon us. We resent it. But no other 
experience brings us so fully into companion- 
ship with Christ, for all that he suffered was 
unjust, and out of his untold sufferings have 
come all the hopes, joys and blessings of our 
lives. 

[190] 



€>f buffeting l^rongfullt 

When a great building was to be erected, an 
artist begged to be permitted to make one of 
the doors. If this could not be granted, he 
asked that he might make one Httle panel of 
one of the doors. Or if this, too, were denied 
him, he craved that he might, at least, be 
permitted to hold the brushes for the artist 
to whom the honor of doing the work should 
be awarded. If so small a part in a work of 
earth were esteemed so high a privilege, it is 
a far higher honor to have even the least 
share with Christ in his great work of hu- 
man redemption. Everyone who suffers any 
wrong patiently and sweetly, in love and 
trust, is working with Christ in the saving 
of the world. 



[191] 



Cl^e ?^utt Waiting ^(tl^out 



[193] 



The woman singeth at her spinning-wheel 
A pleasant chant, ballad, or barcarolle; 
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, 
Far more than of the flax; and yet the reel 
Is full, and artfully her fingers feel 

With quick adjustmeTit, provident control. 
The lines, too subtly twisted to unroll, 
Out to a perfect thread; I hence appeal 

To the dear Christian Church — that we may do 
Our Father's business in these temples mirk, 
Thus swift arid steadfast; thus intent and strong 
While thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue 
Some high, calm, spheric tune, and prove our 
work 
The better for the sweetjiess of our song. 

— ;Mrs. Browning. 



[194] 



CHAPTER SEVENTEENTH 



Ci^e ?^utt Waiting ^tti^owt 




T was a glorious privilege 
for the disciples to be with 
their Master on the Holy 
Mount. They carried the 
impression of the Trans- 
figuration in their hearts 
as long as they lived. Peter would have 
stayed there, and wanted to build tabernacles 
for the Master and for the visitants from 
heaven. He tells us in his own narrative in 
Mark's Gospel, that he did not know what 
to say. When we do not know what to say 
we would better keep quiet. But Peter had 
not learned to do this — ^he thought he must 
always be saying something, and of necessity 
he said some things he would better not have 
said. 

Peter could not have kept the heavenly mes- 
sengers in the little booths made of branches 
which he wanted to set up. They were no 
[195] 



ftnnfng ti^e Wav 



longer of the earth and could not now dwell 
in houses made with hands. They had been 
for centuries in the spirit-world and could not 
have resumed again the narrow limitations of 
a booth of boughs or even of a palace. Be- 
sides, Moses and Elijah had not come to 
earth to stay. They had been sent only on 
an errand of love to the Master, as he was 
setting out for his cross. They had come to 
cheer and encourage him. Their errand 
needed but a brief time, and when it was fin- 
ished they hastened back into heaven. A lit- 
tle later the disciples "lifted up their eyes, 
and saw no one, save Jesus only." No taber- 
nacles, though built of earth's finest materials, 
could have kept those holy ones on the earth 
an hour after their sacred mission was accom- 
plished. Peter's wish was vain. 
Nor would it have been possible to keep Jesus 
on the mount. Work was waiting for him 
that very hour at the foot of the mountain. 
A father was there with his demoniac boy. 
For Jesus to have stayed in the tabernacle 
which Peter wished to build for him there 
[196] 



amid the glory would have been to neglect 
the call of human need, in order to enjoy 
spiritual pleasure himself — and this was never 
Christ's way. Then he was just setting out 
on his last journey, at the end of which stood 
the cross. Not even the bliss of heavenly 
communion could keep him from the work 
and the suffering before him. To keep the 
Master on the Mount of Transfiguration 
would have been to hold him back from his 
mission. This no constraint could have done, 
for he had come only to do his Father's will 
and to redeem the world. 
For the disciples, too, there was work wait- 
ing. They had duties to perform. They 
needed further preparation for their great 
work, and then they were to be sent out to 
win the world for their Lord. 
Devotion is not all of a holy life. It would 
be very sweet to stay on holy mountains with 
Christ and not return again to the world of 
toil and struggle, but that is not the purpose 
of our redemption. We are to pray and 
commune with our Master. We are to sit 
[ 197 ] 



ifttiDing ti^e Wav 



down at his table and enjoy the rapture of his 
love and the joy of his presence. But we are 
not to build tabernacles and stay there. We 
are to go quickly from the closet of devotion, 
out into the wide field, where a sinning, suf- 
fering, sorrowing world needs us, that we 
may carry to men the blessings which we have 
received. 

Indeed, the purpose of devotion and com- 
munion is not personal enjoyment, not even 
purest spiritual ecstasy, as a final end; it is 
preparation for service. The Transfiguration 
experience was not meant merely to warm 
hearts and kindle the fires of worship — it was 
to help the Master to go on along his steep, 
rough way to' the cross ; it was to strengthen 
the disciples' faith in their Lord and in his 
divine mission. No spiritual rapture is ever 
intended to end with itself — it is to send us 
out to do something for the world. 
No vision of Christ granted to us is meant 
to exhaust itself in the bliss it brings — it ful- 
fills its purpose only when its fervor makes 
us love Christ more intensel}^ and enter into 

[ 198 ] 



m^t ^utv Waitinq, ^(ti^out 

his service with new enthusiasm and energy. 
A philosopher when he had kindled a fire on 
a cold day and had been warmed by it, would 
call himself before the bar of conscience and 
ask, "What did you do when you were 
warm?" He felt that the comfort he had 
received demanded some service to others 
in return. Every earthly comfort we enjoy 
should put into us a new impulse of helpful- 
ness, if we are living rightly. Especially is 
this true of every spiritual comfort, every 
ecstasy that thrills our hearts while we wor- 
ship, every feeling of warmth produced by 
the divine love shed abroad in us by the Holy 
Spirit. 

We love our church services. We enjoy the 
fellowship. We are glad to sing together, 
to pray together, to worship together. That 
is well. But what do we do when we are 
warmed.^ What is the fruit, the outcome of 
our enjoyment.'^ While we are at our wor- 
ship, singing our hymns of love, looking at 
the glory of the face of Christ, our hearts 
aglow with adoration, there are lost ones in 
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finhin^ ti^e Wav 



homes all along our streets ; there are sorrow- 
ing ones, needing our sympathy, our com- 
fort, the touch of our hand ; there are tempted 
ones almost yielding, almost falling away into 
eternal death, whom we may hearten and res- 
cue. Let us not forget that the purpose of 
the blessing that comes to us in our devotions 
does not end with itself, is not meant merely 
to warm and gladden us, but to send us out 
to become a greater blessing to others. What 
are we doing with the heavenly gifts God is 
sending to us ? If we are doing nothing with 
them, if we do not go out from our enjoy- 
ment to be a blessing to others, we are miss- 
ing the blessing it was meant we should re- 
ceive. George Macdonald says : 

Go thou into thy closet ; shut thy door ; 
And pray to him in secret ; he will hear. 

The closet is where we meet God. It is the 
Holy of holies. But it is not the only place 
to worship God — no true worship ever ends 
there. Besides, we worship that we may be 
[200] 



Ci^e l^utt awaiting ^iti^out 

ready to serve. So the call comes to him who 
is enjoying the rapture of communion: 

^^ Hark J hark, a voice amid the quiet intense! 

It is thy duty waiting thee without. 

Rise from thy knees in hope, the half of doubt; 
A hand doth pull thee — it is Providence ; 
Open thy door straightway and get thee hence; 

Go forth into the tumult and the shout ; 

Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about.'* 

There is a time for waiting, for meditation, 
for fellowship, for prayer. But that is not 
all of religion. We have the vision that we 
may take up the task. We are saved that 
we may serve. We are left in this world that 
we may make the world better. We enjoy 
transfiguration visions that we may be trans- 
figured ourselves and shine in the darkness 
about us. We have our hearts warmed with 
the love of Christ, that we may go out to be 
the love of Christ to others. 
In a cottage in Scotland, framed in glass, is 
a withered rose which money could not buy. 
A boy died far away in the south of France 
[201] 




finuinij ti^e Wav 



where he had gone to seek health. Henry 
Drummond heard of the boy's death, and, 
when in that region, went to his grave and 
picked a rose blooming on it and sent it to 
the boy's mother. Drummond was always 
doing such kindly things. In his diary he 
wrote : 

Holiness is infinite compassion for others ; 
Happiness is a great love and much serving. 

There is not one of us who may not go out 
from any religious service, any hour of de- 
votion, ready to make others stronger. Peo- 
ple are looking to us for strength, for com- 
fort, for food for their hunger. We do not 
know what we are to others — to weak ones, 
to timid souls, to tempted ones, ta sorrowing 
ones, to lonely ones, how much they need us, 
how they depend on us, how we may help 
them. One writes to another: 

/ vrish that I might tell you what you are 
To me — you seem so fine and strong and true, 
So hold, and yet so gentle, so apart 
From petty strivings that confute men's minds. 
[202] 



m^t ?^utr Waiting WitJ^out 

I wish that I might make you understand 

How your clean, brave young life has made me brave. 

How I am cheered and strengthened and upheld, 

When I consider that the world holds you 

A hero ; in a world of false ideals 

Your truth J your worth, has blazed its own brave way. 

Yes, I would have you know this, know how dear 

My heart holds what you stand for, for I fear 

You might do something that you might not do, 

My dream^s embodiment, if you but knew. 

We do not know how other lives may be hurt 
if we show any lack of the spirit of Christ. 
The world needs our best life, our bravest 
words, our noblest heroisms, our tenderest 
love, our most self-forgetful help. Let us 
rest in the tenderness of the love of Christ 
until our lives glow with its blessed warmth, 
and then go out to be Christ to others. 
We need communings with Christ to get our 
visions of duty, our ideals for life. But we 
must be ready then to go down into the deep- 
est valleys, among the sorest human needs, 
even where sin is doing its worst, to do the 
lowest tasks and the most distasteful duties. 
[203] 



Cl^e Ci^anfejigiiJing f aljft 



[205] 



*^My home is not so great; 
But open heart I keep. 
The sorrows come to me, 
That they may sleep, 

**The little bread I have 
I share, and gladly pray 
To-morrow may give more, 
To give away, 

"Fes, in the dark sometimes 
The childish fear will haunt: 
How long J how long, before 
I die of want ? 

*'But all the bread I have 
I share, and ever say, 
To-morrow shall bring more 
To give away.** 



[206] 



CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH 




HE annual Thanksgiving 
day in America has grown 
to be a great national fes- 
tival. It is a day of re- 
joicing. It summons all 
the people to gratitude. 
It is fitting that a people who have received 
untold blessings should set apart one day on 
which all should recall their mercies, think of 
God as the Giver of all and express theill 
grateful feelings in words of praise. 
But it is not intended that the other three 
hundred and sixty-four days shall be empty 
of gladness because one is named as an espe- 
cial day of rejoicing. We cannot crowd into 
any one day all the praises of a year. In- 
deed on no one day can we be grateful for 
another day. No one person can give thanks 
for a whole company of people. So no one 
day can be glad for any but itself. All the 
[207] 



jfintitng ti^e Wav 



days should be thanksgiving days. Any that 
are not lack something, and stand as imper- 
fect days in the calendar. We are told that 
we may count that day lost in which we do 
no kindness to anyone. In like manner may 
be set down as a lost day that one in which 
no songs of gratitude rise from our hearts 
and lips to God. 

Anybody can be thankful on one day of the 
year. At least, it ought to be possible for 
even the most gloomy and pessimistic person 
to rouse up to grateful feeling on the high 
tide of an annual Thanksgiving day. No 
doubt, it is something to pipe even one little 
song in a whole year of discontent and com- 
plaining — the kind of Hving with which some 
people fill their years. God must be pleased 
to have some people grateful even for a few 
moments in a long period of time, and to hear 
them sing even once in a year. But that is 
not the way he would have us live. The ideal 
life is one that is always thankful, not only 
for a little moment on a particularly fine day. 
"Praise is comely," that is, beautiful — beau- 
[208] 



tiful to God. The life which pleases him is 
the one which always rejoices. 
Nowhere in the Bible can we find either in- 
gratitude or joylessness commanded or com- 
mended. All ungrateful feelings and disposi- 
tions are condemned. A great deal is said in 
disapproval of murmuring, discontent, worry- 
ing, and all forms of ingratitude. Again and 
again we are taught that joy is the keynote 
of a true life. It is not enough to rejoice 
when the sun shines, when all things are go- 
ing well with us, when we are in the midst of 
prosperity; we are to rejoice as well when 
clouds hide the blue sky, when our circum- 
stances seem to be adverse, or when we are 
passing through sufferings. In one of the 
Psalms, the writer says : 

" / will hless Jehovah at all times; 
His praise shall continually he in my mouth, " 

He had learned to sing in the hours of pain 

as well as in the times of gladness. That is 

the way the Christian should do — nothing 

[209] 



fmtitng ti^t Wav 



should hush his song or choke the voice of 
thanksgiving and praise. 

The only way to get thanksgiving into its 
true place in our lives is to have it grow into 
a habit. A habit is a well-worn path. There 
was a first step over the course, breaking the 
way. Then a second person, finding the 
prints of feet, walked in them. A third fol- 
lowed, then a fourth, until at length there 
was a beaten path, and now thousands go 
upon it. One who has been full of miserable 
discontents, utterly lacking in gratitude, gets 
a new divine impulse, and one day is really 
grateful for a few moments. The impulse 
comes again, and again he lets his life flow 
toward gratitude. Persisting in the disposi- 
tion, his heart returns again and again to its 
gladness, until by and by it has been lured 
altogether away from the old beaten paths of 
discontent, discouragement, and unhappiness, 
and runs always in the ways of gladness. 
If we find that we have been leaving thanks- 
giving out of our lives, if we have been allow- 
ing ourselves to grumble instead of praise, 
[210] 



if we have indulged in unhappiness instead 
of in gladness, we should instantly set about 
the breaking of a new path, a thanksgiving 
path. It will not be easy at first, for gloomy 
dispositions when long indulged persist in 
staying in our lives. But they can be con- 
quered, and we should not pause in our effort 
until we have trained ourselves entirely away 
from everything that is cheerless and un- 
grateful, into the ways of joy and song. 
There are many encouragements to a life of 
thanksgiving. For one thing, it makes life 
much happier. The person who indulges in 
fretting and complaining is missing much 
that is loveliest, both in character and in ex- 
perience. The tendency of such a life is 
toward gloom and depression, and these quali- 
ties in the heart soon show themselves on the 
face and in the manner. Light is the emblem 
of a beautiful life, but ingratitude is dark- 
ness rather than light. If we would be happy 
we must train ourselves to be grateful. In- 
gratitude makes life dreary for us. 
Another reason for cultivating the thanksgiv- 
[211] 



ifinDfng tl^e Wa^ 



ing spirit is because of its influence on others. 
Nobody loves a sullen person. We are ex- 
horted to think of "whatsoever things are 
lovely," and cheerlessness is not lovely. If 
we would have people like us, if we would 
attract them to us and have good influence 
over them, we must cultivate happiness in all 
our expressions. There are many people 
who have foiTaed the habit of unhappiness. 
They may be good and honest, but they have 
not learned the lesson of gladness. And they 
are not helpful people. They are not dif- 
f users of joy. 

We are as responsible for our faces as we are 
for our dispositions. If we go about with 
gloom on our countenances, we will cast shad- 
ows over others and make life harder for 
them. No one can be a real blessing to others 
until he has mastered his gloom and has at- 
tained the thanksgiving face. No one can be 
of very much help to others if he carries dis- 
content and anxiety on his countenance. We 
owe it to our friends, therefore, as well as to 
ourselves, to form the habit of thanksgiving. 
[212] 



There are those who have learned this lesson 
so well that wherever they go they make hap- 
piness. Their lives are benedictions. One 
writes to such a friend a birthday letter: 

This is your birthday. On the calendars 
Of those who know you it is marked with gold, 
As both a holy and a holiday. 
You make us happy y and you make us good, 
By simply being with you. You bestow, 
And think you are receiving ; like a rose 
That marvels at the fragrance of the breeze. 
We are most glad, since you were sent to earth 
It was while we are here ; not hastened down 
To shine amidst the shadows of the past. 
Nor kept to brace some joyful future day. 
But come to share our present as it is. 
And leave to-morrow better for your stay. 

It ought not to be hard to train one's self to 
be grateful. There would seem to be reason 
enough in every life for continual thanksgiv- 
ing. True, there are days when things may 
seem to' go wrong, but it is only in the seem- 
ing. There is no doubt that all our circum- 
stances bring blessings which we may have if 
[213] 



(finDtng tl^e Wav 



we will. The hardest experience of any day 
enfolds in it a gift from God, if only we re- 
ceive it in faith and love. We think of the 
sunny days as being good days, and we call 
unpleasant weather bad. But if we under- 
stood it, we should know that God sends to 
the earth just as rich blessings in his clouds 
as he does in his sunshine. The clouds bring 
rain, and after the rain all nature appears 
clothed in fresh beauty. A simple, childlike 
faith sees God in everything, and is .ready 
always to give cheerful thanks, even when the 
reason for the thanksgiving may not be ap- 
parent. 

Indeed, we shall some day see that many of 
the richest and best blessings of our lives 
have come to us through experiences and cir- 
cumstances which to us seemed adverse, and 
from which we shrank. There is an old 
promise which says that to them that love 
God all things work together for good. All 
we have to make sure of is that we keep our- 
selves in the love of God. If we do this, 
everything that comes to us will bring its 
[214] 



enriching in some way, and out of the pain- 
ful things of our lives we will gather the best 
blessings and the deepest joys. 
Then we shall not have many miles at the 
most of the rough, steep road. In a few 
years we shall have gone over it all and shall 
have come out into a place where there shall 
be nothing to vex or disturb us. And such 
gladness waits for us, such blessing, that one 
hour there will make us forget all the sorrow 
and pain and toil of the way. 

" Tis a long road home; 
But sleep for aching eyes. 

Rest for weary feet, 
For striving hearts a prize. 
Silence still and sweet, 
Wait at the end of the long road home, 

" ^Tis a hard road home; 
Many faint and lag 

Beneath the heavy pack, 
With feet and hearts that drag. 
But none looks hack — 
We know there^s an end to the hard road home. 
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fintiing ti^e Wav 



" Tis a dark road home, 

With shadows long and deep, 
Where timid travellers fall, 
And scarce their path may keep; 
Bui the Light that shines for all 
Gleams at the end of the dark road home.'' 



[216] 



(( 



I5ttamt pt ^u ^ttong" 



[217] 



^^ Because I spent the strength thou gavest me 
In struggle which thou never didst ordain^ 
And have but dregs of life to offer thee, 
Lord, I do repent, I do repent. 

*^ Because I was impatient, would not wait, 
But thrust my impious hands across thy threadSf 
And marred the pattern drawn out for my life, 
Lord, I do repent, I do repent, 

*^ Because thou hast home with me all this while, 
Hast smitten me with love until I weep. 
Hast called me as a mother calls her child, 
Lord, I do repent, I do repent.^^ 



[218] 



CHAPTER NINETEENTH 

^^I3ecattj2ie pe are ^ttong'* 




iT used to be a custom for 
travellers in Switzerland 
to bring home clusters of 
the edelweiss. The flower 
is not sought because of 
its beauty or for its fra- 
grance, but in recognition of its bravery and 
victoriousness in living and blooming under 
hard conditions. It grows on the Alps and 
Pyrenees, at lofty altitudes, where almost 
nothing else lives, and on crags difficult of 
access, and is among the hardiest of all plants. 
Thus the edelweiss becomes the symbol of 
noble life that endures hardness, that is vic- 
torious amid antagonisms, that rises superior 
to obstacles. 

The man who has never known a hardship, 
who never has had to practise self-denial or 
make a personal sacrifice, may be the envy 
of other men whose lives have been one con- 
[219] 



fintifng tl^e Wav 



tinued struggle. They may think that if 
they could have had his easy circumstances 
they could have made a great deal more of 
their life. But really their chance in life thus 
far has been far better than his. Manhood 
is made in the field of struggle and hardship, 
not in ways of ease and luxury. Hindrances 
are opportunities. Difficulty is a school for 
manhood. 

Strength is the glory of manhood. Yet it 
is not easy to be strong — it is easier to be 
weak and to drift. It is easier for the boy 
in school not to work hard to get his lessons, 
but to let them go, and then at the last de- 
pend on some other boy to help him through. 
It is easier, when something happens to make 
you irritable just to fly into a temper and 
say bitter words, than it is to keep quiet and 
self-controlled. It is easier, when you are 
with other young people and they are about 
to do something that you know to be un- 
worthy, just to go with them, than it is to 
say, "I cannot do this wickedness against 
God." It is easier to be weak than to be 
[220] 



*^l5tcamt pz are strong" 

strong. But we know where weakness leads 
in the end. 

Nothing is impossible to young men. Gen- 
eral Armstrong said, "Doing what can't be 
done is the glory of living." Anybody can 
do the easy things, the things that can be 
done. A young man who has no higher goal 
than the things he knows he can do, will never 
rise to any sublime height, "What are Chris- 
tians put into the world for but to do the 
impossible in the strength of God ?" said Gen- 
eral Armstrong again. Jesus said the same 
— that if we have faith we can remove moun- 
tains — that is, do things that are impossible 
to human strength, because faith unites us to 
God and his omnipotence works then in us 
and with us. God expects a great deal of 
those who are strong. He does not expect 
much of babies, of invalids, of paralytics, or 
of feeble-minded people ; but young men have 
in them vast possibilities of power. Is it 
manly not to use this power for God, for 
country, for truth, for humanity? One of 
the most pitiful things the stars look down 
[221] 



^(nDfng ti^e Wav 



upon is a young man with fine gifts, with 
strength, with love, with genius, able to do 
some noble work, yet wasting all his possibiH- 
ties in some form of debased living. 
Strength is God's gift and should be used 
only in worthy ways; to use it in any un- 
worthy way is sacrilege. The device of a 
French admiral was a burning and flaming 
oar, as a sign of his fervent and zealous ac- 
tivity on the sea for his king and his country. 
Underneath the oar was the motto: "For an- 
other — No." While he was ready always to 
gird himself to fight for his country, he was 
not ready to do battle for any other cause* 
Dora Greenwell has written these lines on 
this motto: 

I gird me not for every cause] 

I answer not to every call, 
I do not wear my heart for daws 

To peck, nor weep when sparrows fall. 

But when I give, I give my all; 
For her my love, for him my friend^ 
My steel, my gold, my life, I spend, 
[222] 



My sword shall flashy my hlood shall flow 
For these J but for another — No I 

Show me hut cause for quarrel strong ^ 
That arms the right against the wrong, 
That bids me battle with the brave 
To crush the tyrant, free the slave; 

Then through the wave I winged will fly. 
Will cleave with oars the yielding sky. 
Will flame through ocean, float through air, 
Will all things suffer, do, and dare. 
For friend I love, for cause I know, 
I fight. But for aught other — No, 

This is a splendid motto for young men 
— "For another — No!" They have superb 
strength, God's wonderful gift to them. Let 
them not waste it in sin, nor squander it in 
uselessness of any kind. Let it not wither 
and shrivel away, wrapped up in any nap- 
kins of non-use. It is sacred, this marvelous 
strength that hides in our hands, in our brain, 
in our heart; it is part of God's own life 
given to us. It is divine. It should be used 
only in ways that will honor God. We 
[223] 



jftnDtng tl^e Wav 



should not answer every call to pour out our 
strength, nor draw our sword in every cause. 
We should keep our life sacred for our 
blaster and for the cause that is dear to him. 
Dr. Guthrie was fond of saying: 

/ live for those who love me, 
For those who know me true, 

For the heaven that bends above me. 
And the good thai I can do; 

For the wrongs th<d need resistance, 

For the cause that lacks assistance. 

For the future in the distance. 
And the good that I can do. 

We are exhorted continually in the Scriptures 
to be strong. Christ is strong and we are to 
be Hke him. We need to be strong in order 
to stand firm and true in the midst of the 
fray of life, and to do our duty faithfully 
and worthily. But how can we be strong? 
We need the strength of heaven in our arm 
to make us equal to the stress of duty and 
responsibihty that we must meet. How can 
we get this strength.? 

[224] 



''Xtcamt ^e are ^tronu'' 

One way Is by prayer. Prayer Is linking our 
little life to God, when his grace will flow 
into our weakness, and make it God's strength. 
If we would be strong, we must pray. 

^^ Lord, what a change within us one short hour 
Spent in thy presence will avail to make ! 

We kneel, how weak ! We rise, how full of power ! 
Why therefore should we do ourselves this wrong, 
Or others, that we are not always strong. 
That we are ever overborne with care. 

That we should ever weak or heartless he. 
Anxious or troubled — when with us is prayer. 

And joy and strength and courage are with thee?'* 

Another secret of strength Is found In fel- 
lowship, companionship, with Christ. Moses 
knew this secret, for it Is said of him that 
"he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." 
We grievously wrong ourselves when we do 
not accept the help of Christ in our tasks and 
struggles. Even in a strong human friend 
we may find inspiration and help which will 
make our lives mean more, stimulating us to 
[225] 



finDing ti^e Wa^ 



bravery and fidelity and enabling us to be 
victorious. The other day a friend travelled 
ten miles to be helped through a terrible 
temptation. "If I can only sit here a few 
minutes and have you make a prayer with 
me and say a strong word of cheer, I ^hall 
not fall." Even a human presence often car- 
ries one through danger and makes one strong 
to overcome. Infinitely more is the presence 
of Christ to us when we are weak. 
It is told of the widow of Schumann, the 
musical composer, that whenever she was 
going to play any of her husband's music 
in public, she would read over some of his 
old letters to her, written in the lover days. 
Thus, she said, his very life seemed to fill and 
possess her, and she was better able then to 
interpret his work. If we will read over 
Christ's words of love to us until his life en- 
ters into us, and his spirit breathes itself into 
our lives, then we can be brave and strong in 
resisting evil and doing his will. 



[226] 



Ci^e dailajsjse^ ^ou ^ear 



[227] 



'^Lordy when I look on high, 

Clouds only meet my sight ; 
Fears deepen with the night; 
But yet it is thy sky. 
Help me to trust thee, then, I pray, 
Wait in the dark and tearfully obey,'* 



[228] 



CHAPTER TWENTIETH 




OST people one meets these 
days wear glasses. Is it 
because there is an increas- 
ing number of defective 
eyes? or it is because the 
advance in scientific knowl- 
edge of the eye reveals the defects, making 
it apparent that almost no one has perfect 
organs of vision? It is well at least that our 
doctors know so well how to take care of our 
eyes and to overcome our manifold infirmities 
of vision. 

It is very important if we are to see well, if 
our eyes are to do honest work for us, that 
we wear the right kind of glasses. Some peo- 
ple do not, and therefore fail to see things 
clearly. They think the trouble is with the 
objects they look at, that they are warped 
or out of proportion, whereas the fault is in 
the lenses through which they look. There 
[229] 



ftntitng ti^e Wav 



is a story of a man to whom everything ap- 
peared crooked or distorted. He was not 
aware of it himself, but thought things really 
were just as they appeared to him to be. He 
did not imagine that he was missing so much 
beauty through the fault of his glasses, and 
kept on wearing them without seeking for 
anything better. One day he was visiting at 
a neighbor's house and idly picked up a pair 
of glasses that lay on a table and put them 
on. To his amazement, everything seemed 
different. He looked at people, and their 
faces were bright and clear. He looked at 
the furniture of the room, and it was grace- 
ful and regular — it had appeared almost gro- 
tesque before as his glasses showed it to him. 
He looked at the pictures on the wall, and 
for the first time s^w their beauty. He 
walked out of doors, and the trees, which 
heretofore he had seen only in vague, gnarled 
form, appeared beautiful. He learned now 
that by using his defective glasses he had 
been missing a large part of the pleasure of 
seeing. He quickly bought a pair of glasses 
[230] 



that suited his eyes, and all the world became 
new to him. 

There are many people who are wearing a 
wrong kind of glasses. There are some, for 
instance, who never see beauty in any other 
person. All characters are distorted to them. 
They see only the faults, the imperfections, 
the blem.ishes of people's lives. Even the 
noblest and best people, falling under their 
eyes, fail to reveal any features that are win- 
some and attractive. They never have a word 
of commendation for any piece of work any- 
one else does, or for any act. Only yester- 
day, one tried for half an hour to get a 
visitor to say a pleasant word about some- 
thing or somebody, but tried in vain. A 
number of persons were referred to in the 
attempt to elicit at least a word of commen- 
dation or approval, but in every case the 
response was harsh, critical, unkindly, cen- 
sorious, sometimes almost venomous. Many 
generous and worthy acts were mentioned, to 
see if some beautiful deed would not win a 
cordial and kindly word, but in every instance 
[231 ] 



finDing tl^e 3^ar 



something was suggested that took away from 
the apparent beauty or worthiness of the acts. 
This person sadly needed a pair of new 
glasses. 

Far more than we know does tliis matter of 
e} es or no eyes make our world for us. We 
are in the midst of most glorious things all 
the while, but some of us see nothing and 
miss all the inspiration that would mean so 
much to us if only our eyes were opened. We 
talk of a lost Paradise, but there is still a 
Paradise for those who can see it. George 
Macdonald says: ^'I suspect we shall find 
some day that the loss of the human paradise 
consists chiefly in the closing of the human 
eyes ; that at least far more of it than people 
think remains about us still, only we are so 
filled with foohsh desires and evil cares that 
we cannot see or hear, cannot even smell or 
taste, the pleasant things around us." 
There is a httle book called "Eyes and No 
Eyes," which tells of two boys who one day 
went out for a walk together. When they 
came back, a friend asked one of them what 
[232] 



he had seen. He said he had seen nothing. 
He had been travelHng through dust and 
along rough paths, but he had not seen any- 
thing beautiful or interesting in all the two 
hours' walk. When the other boy was asked 
the same question, he replied with much en- 
thusiasm, telling of a hundred beautiful 
things he had seen in his walk — in the fields 
and in the woods, — flowers and plants and 
bits of landscape, birds and squirrels and rip- 
pling streams. The two boys had walked to- 
gether over the same path, and while one had 
seen nothing to give him pleasure, the other 
came back with his mind full of lovely images 
and bright recollections. Both had looked on 
the same objects, from the same points of 
view, but they had looked through diff*erent 
lenses. 

There always are two classes of people among 
those who journey together — those with eyes 
which see and those who, having eyes, see 
nothing. There are many people who never 
see the stars, nor the hills, nor the blue sky, 
nor the flowers, nor any beauty in plant or 
[233] 



finding ti^e Wa^ 



tree or living creature. A story is told of 
Turner, the artist, who stood one day with a 
lady before one of his great paintings. The 
visitor looked a long time at the picture and 
then said, "Mr. Turner, I cannot see those 
things in nature." Looking at her thought- 
fully, he replied, "Don't you wish you could, 
madam?" 

Many of us who see nothing lovely in the 
objects about us wish we could see what others 
see. There is a way of learning to do it. 
We should train ourselves to make use of our 
eyes. Every child should be taught from its 
earliest youth to observe, to see beauty wher- 
ever beauty exists. This is part of the new 
education for young children. They are en- 
couraged to look intently at all things about 
them, so that they can give an intelligent 
account of whatever they have seen. This 
training should be carried into all the life, 
so that we shall miss nothing of the profuse 
and wondrous loveliness that is everywhere in 
our Father's world. The result of not using 
our eyes is that by and by we have no eyes 
[234] 



— the faculty that is not exercised becomes 
atrophied. 

Still more to be pitied than those who have 
eyes and see not, are those who see things 
distorted, through warped lenses, through 
untrue glasses. We should train ourselves to 
see only what is lovely. An old legend of 
Jesus tells that while the disciples one day 
turned away with loathing from the carcass 
of a dead dog by the wayside, the Master 
looked at it and said to the disciples, "What 
beautiful teeth the creature has !" Too many 
of us see only the things that are loathsome 
and have no vision for anything that is win- 
some. 

A lady took her visitor to a window to show 
her a view which to her was very inspiring. 
The guest manifested almost disgust as she 
exclaimed that all she saw was an unusually 
fine lot of black chimneys and smoky back- 
buildings. The genial hostess said, cheer- 
fully, "Why, I never saw the chimneys and 
back-buildings before. I saw only the hills 
yonder and that fringe of noble trees on the 
[235] 



finDtng t\^t Wav 



horizon!" This woman got far more out of 
Hfe than her friend did, for she had eyes for 
the beauty and grandeur of the world about 
her, while the other saw only the things that 
were homely and without beauty. 
The same is true of the men and women about 
us, as well as of the scenes and conditions. 
It would add immeasurably to our pleasure 
in life if we would train ourselves to look for 
whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, in the 
people about us, instead of for the blemishes 
and faults. If we wore the glasses of love 
and charity, it would be in this way that we 
should see everyone and everyone's work. 
What a change it would make for us in the 
world of people if we should some day put 
on these new glasses and look at others 
through them! 

The aspect of all life's events and experiences 
would also be changed if we wore the right 
kind of glasses. To many persons life has 
nothing bright. It is made up chiefly of 
things which produce discontent, complain- 
[236] 



ing, and fault-finding. We all know people 
who never have a really bright word to say 
about their own life and its circumstances. 
To them everything seems wrong. They ex- 
aggerate their trials and see a calamity in 
every smallest mishap. They see nothing 
bright in any outlook. They enumerate 
their troubles and sorrows with glib tongue, 
and even when their joys and happinesses are 
referred to, find flecks in them. If they 
could in some way change their glasses, so 
that they would see things in the light of 
Christian faith and trust, all things would be 
transformed for them. 

What we all need, in order that we may see 
people and things as they are, is a heart of 
love. If we could see through Christ's eyes, 
everything would be attractive to our vision. 
We can get the new glasses, with their magi- 
cal power, only by getting into our hearts 
the mind that is in Christ Jesus — the mind 
of love, of patience, of trust, of joy, of peace. 

'^ Grant us, Lord^ the grace to bear 
The little pricking thorn ; 
[ 237 ] 



ftnDtng ti^e Wav 



The hasty word that seems unfair; 

The twang of truths well worn; 

The jest which makes our weakness plain ; 

The darling plan overturned; 

The careless touch upon our pain; 

The slight we have not earned; 

The rasp of care, dear Lord, to-day, 

Lest all these fretting things 

Make needless grief, oh, give, we pray, 

The heart that trusts and sings. ^^ 



[238] 



Ci^e fault of 01)et;*0enjSittt)etre?i!8 



[239] 



In all thy humors, whether gra^e or mellow, 
ThouWt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow. 
Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, 
There is no living with thee, nor without thee. 

— ''Spectator." 



[240] 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST 

Cl^e fault of fSDlotV'^^tmitiUnm 




DME people make a good 
deal of needless suffering 
for themselves and others 
by their over-sensitiveness. 
They appear to be always 
watching for words or 
tones in the conversation of others which may 
in some way reflect upon them or may allude 
with a suggestion of blame or criticism to 
something they have said or done. We all 
know people whose extreme sensitiveness keeps 
us continually, and in an uncomfortable way, 
on our guard when we are in their presence. 
We have to be always most careful what we 
say lest in some way we vex them or give 
them pain. It is part of love's duty never to 
say a word which would cause another any 
hurt feeling. There is too much thoughtless 
speaking which wounds hearts. It is part of 
the lesson of thoughtfulness to learn to min- 
[241 ] 



finlifng ti^e Wav 



gle with people of all sorts and yet never 
touch a tender spot, never give pain to a 
gentle heart. This is not easy. It requires 
almost infinite tact to do it. 
It is true that some people seem never to 
learn this part of the lesson of thoughtfiil- 
ness. They have a genius for hurting others. 
They are continually saying things which 
give sting and pain, referring to unwelcome 
subjects and bringing up matters which tend 
to exasperate or irritate. They seem to walk 
with heavy boots among the most delicate 
flowers of feeling as if they were treading 
on rocks. It is to be expected that we shall 
learn love's lessons better than this. Thought- 
fulness is one of the finest qualities in a well- 
disciplined life. It regards the comfort and 
happiness of others before its own. In con- 
versation it is always careful not to refer to 
things which would cause pain. It never 
alludes to a man's physical defects. It re- 
spects your sorrow and refrains from rudely 
touching your wound. Cardinal Newman de- 
fined a gentleman as one who never by word 
[ 242 ] 



Ci^e fault of €)iier*^enjsitii)ene00 

or act gives pain to another. This is Chris- 
tian love's ideal. 

But the sensitive person also has a duty in 
the case — a duty of not showing hurt feeling 
too readily, of bearing his pain quietly, even 
if others are thoughtless. For, gentle as we 
may be, it is practically impossible to avoid 
everything that may cause pain to a tender 
heart. The most thoughtful person will 
some time unintentionally speak a word that 
will hurt. 

A noble spirit will learn to suffer from the 
thoughtlessness, even from the rudeness of 
others, and yet be still. No doubt extreme 
sensitiveness is a fault. Ofttimes, however, 
the cause of it is at least partly physical and 
in a sense therefore it is involuntary. The 
nerves lie so near the surface that they are 
exposed to every touch. Sensitive people 
suffer greatly. One who is less delicately or- 
ganized gets more happiness out of life, for 
unpleasant, disagreeable things do not affect 
him so painfully. 

But the cause of sensitiveness is not always 
[243] 



fintiing tl^e Wa^ 



physical. Some people allow themselves to 
be hurt by every kind of expression which is 
not quite to their mind. They have refined 
tastes, and rudeness offends them. They are 
scholarly in their speech, and they are pained 
by violations of the rules of grammar and 
rhetoric. They are accustomed to the con- 
ventional ways of pohte society, and bitterly 
resent whatever to them seems to be vulgar. 
They have no patience with those whose man- 
ner or whose personality in any way offends 
them. Such people will never get much com- 
fort from others until they are cured in some 
way of their extreme sensitiveness. 
There are two ways of meeting qualities and 
habits in others which pain us or would nat- 
urally in^itate or vex us. We may be mas- 
tered by them, or we may get the mastery 
over them. No one can live long in this 
world and find all things precisely- to his 
taste. We may as well learn first as last that 
we cannot bring all people to our way of 
thinking or to our idea of the proprieties or 
amenities of life. If we would get along 
[244] 



CJ^e fault of €)ter*jsensi(tttienejijs 

sweetly and happily with all those we must 
meet in our daily rounds, we shall have to do 
at least our share of the yielding and^ self- 
denying. Instead of getting everybody to 
become agreeable and pleasing to us, we shall 
have to get over our fastidiousness, and our 
love will have to learn to be blind to many 
things that are not beautiful in others and 
deaf to many things that naturally grate 
upon our ears and are offensive to our taste. 
We must be agreeable and sweet ourselves, 
whether others are exactly pleasing to us or 
not. 

The law of love teaches us to look upon all 
men as our brothers and to treat them with 
consideration. Love is the best cure for the 
sensitiveness that is offended by lack of cul- 
ture or refinement in others. Some of the 
best people in the world have homely manners 
and are ignorant of the conventionalities of 
society. Love must be large enough to over- 
look all such things, and to see the man back 
of the plain garb. 

There is another kind of sensitiveness that is 
[245] 



finning ti^t Wa^ 



still more unreasonable. Men call it touchi- 
ness. It is like an exposed sore which is al- 
ways being hurt. There are people who seem 
to be ever on the watch for slights, and they 
are always finding them, too, or imagining 
them. The utmost thought fulness cannot 
avoid saying things which wound them, for 
they exaggerate everything unpleasant and 
imagine unkindly intention when none was 
dreamed of. They flush and show grieved 
feehng at the slightest questioning of their 
infallibility. If anyone expresses a different 
opinion from theirs on the subject they at 
once resent it, become piqued and hurt, mak- 
ing it a personal matter. They can never 
calmly discuss a matter pro and con with an- 
other, for they will not tolerate any objection 
to their views, or any opinion that differs 
from theirs. 

Such sensitiveness makes hfe hard, not less 
for one's friends than for one's self. It in- 
dicates a most unwholesome spirit, anything 
but beautiful, far from being sweet and win- 
ning. Those who become aware of their 
[246] 



weakness in this regard should set to work 
at once to get rid of their unseemly burden 
and burdensomeness. 

There are several considerations which may 
help in the cure of this weakness. One is the 
fact that exhibitions of hurt feeling are most 
unseemly. When we see them in others we 
know how they appear also in us. They are 
childish and unworthy of anyone who is much 
past the years of infancy. We may excuse and 
tolerate touchiness in a very young child, but 
in a full-grown man it is altogether unpar- 
donable. Proper self-respect should make it 
impossible for anyone to permit such unseem- 
liness in his conduct. We should be ashamed 
of anything so unworthy, so unbeautiful in 
our disposition and behavior. 
Another motive for the avoidance of such dis- 
plays is that they give pain to others. This 
is one of the infirmities which make friend- 
ship hard. One of the comforts of true 
friendship is that we do not need to be always 
on our guard lest we give offence. A gen- 
erous, confiding nature should not be pained 
[247] 



ifinning tl^e Wa^ 



by any treatment. Perfect love loves unto 
the uttermost. It overlooks and forgives and 
never fails. One who is touchy and ready to 
be hurt by the slightest allusion or by any 
seeming neglect makes entire freedom and 
confidence in friendship impossible. 
Another help in getting rid of over-sensitive- 
ness is to remember that such a spirit is not 
Christian. It is in violation of the whole 
catalogue of quaKties which are lovely. We 
cannot witness worthily for Christ unless we 
master it. We cannot conceive of our Master 
as being touchy and sensitive. 
In trying to overcome this Infirmity a good 
habit is to cultivate indifference to unpleasant 
things in others about us, to ignore their 
existence. When certain worthless fellows 
failed to show King Saul proper honor after 
his choice as king, we are told that "he held 
his peace." The meaning is that he was deaf 
to their insults. This is a good way to bear 
ourselves toward all unkindness — to ignore it, 
to pay no attention to it, to act as if it had 
not happened. A deaf man said he had com- 
[248] 



Ci^e fault of ^iDtX:^^mMUnm 

pensation for his deafness in the fact that 
there were so many silly and foolish things 
said which he did not have to hear. We shall 
save ourselves from much hurt feeling if we 
will be as if we were deaf. 



[249] 



i\ 



m 9If ^e mti i^ot 



[251] 



There^s so much had in the best of us, 
And so much good in the worst of us, 
That it scarcely behooves any of us. 
To talk about the rest of us. 

— Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Alas, how easily things go wrong, 

A sigh too much, or a kiss too long, 

And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, 

And life is never the same again, 

Alas, how hardly things go right 

'Tis hard to watch in a summer night, 

For the sigh will come, and the kiss will stay. 

And the summer night is a winter day. 

— George Macdonald. 



[252] 



CHAPTER TWENTY-SECOND 

ajs %i wt m^ ^ot 




HERE are some things we 
would better not know. 
Or, if we do know them, 
we would better be as 
though we did not know 
them. We should never 
pry into other people's matters. We should 
respect every other man's individuality. Some 
people are always seeking to know others' 
private affairs. It is the worst kind of im- 
pertinence to try to do this. But sometimes 
there are things told to us voluntarily in con- 
fidence, and of these we may not speak. To 
some people, however, a secret is a heavy 
burden. They go about "dying to tell," and 
yet they dare not tell. In some cases, how- 
ever, keeping the secret proves impossible and 
the thing is told — told, of course, as a secret, 
only to certain trusted persons. But confi- 
dence has been violated, and the bearer of 
[253] 



f inDtng ti^e Wav 



the burden has failed of entire loyalty and 
honor. 

It would have been a great deal better if this 
betrayer of another's confidence had regarded 
himself as not knowing the thing which by 
the grace of his friend he had come to know. 
It would have been better still, of course, if 
he really never had learned it. He had no 
right to hear it. He heard it only through 
the weakness of another. It is an unkindness 
to many people to ask them to be the cus- 
todians of secrets which they are not allowed 
to divulge. It is placing them in a position 
in which they cannot but suffer. It is sub- 
jecting them to a temptation which it is very 
hard for them to resist. We have no right 
to lay such a burden on any friend. Besides, 
if what we tell is something which ought not 
to be told, we have no right to tell it even to 
one person. 

But when another has been weak and has told 
us something which we are charged to repeat 
to no other being in the world, what is our 
duty.? We may say, "Well, if my friend can 
[254] 



aj8 9lf ^t m^ ii^ot 



trust me with this matter, there can be no 
harm in my trusting another friend with it." 
But the failure of another to be true to him- 
self and perfectly honorable will never ex- 
cuse us for failing in the same way. Our 
duty can be nothing less than the most sacred 
keeping of the secret confided to us. It is 
not ours to divulge to anyone. We should 
consider ourselves as not having heard it 
at all. 

Of course, we cannot work any sort of magic 
on ourselves by which the bit of knowledge 
communicated to us shall be hterally taken 
out of our memory and be as a lost word to 
us thenceforward. Some people seem to have 
memories out of which knowledge once pos- 
sessed does vanish so completely that it can- 
not be found again. But usually it is not 
great secrets which have been whispered into 
the ear with solemn adjurations, which get 
lost out of memory. The things people for- 
get most easily are likely to be things of 
value, important facts, useful information, 
things they ought to remember. It should 
[255] 



ffnning tl^e Wav 



be possible, however, to forget in the same 
way matters which we do not need to remem- 
ber, which it is better we do not remember. 
We should train ourselves to forget people's 
faults. We are told that God does not re- 
member the sins of his people. His forgive- 
ness obliterates even the memory of the evil 
things we have done. Of course there is a 
sense in which God cannot forget, but the 
meaning is that he remembers as if he remem- 
bered not. We do not usually forget our 
brother's faults and follies. Nor are they 
before our minds as if they were not. On 
the other hand, they are likely to be kept 
very much in evidence. One of the Beati- 
tudes is, "Blessed are the merciful, for they 
shall obtain mercy." If we remember the 
wrong things we see in others how can we 
expect God not to remember the greater 
wrong things his pure eye sees in us.'^ 
There are matters of knowledge of others 
which come to us in an accidental way which 
also should be to us as if we do not know 
them. Sometimes we are compelled to over- 
[256] 



ajs 9if wt mh 0ot 



hear words which were not meant for our 
ears, which no one supposes we have heard. 
The other day a friend wrote of being wit- 
ness unintentionally of something which, if 
spoken of to others, would have led to very 
serious censure of the persons concerned. 
Advice was asked. What should this friend 
do with the unwelcome knowledge? There 
can be only one answer to such a question. 
Things learned in any accidental way, when 
it was not intended that we should know of 
them, we are to consider ourselves as not 
knowing at all. There is no other honorable 
course. It is bad enough to divulge some- 
thing which has been told us by another in 
great confidence, under charge of secrecy; 
but it is far worse to speak to anyone of 
things we have learned in a purely accidental 
way, which we have no right to know. 
There are things told us sometimes of others, 
evil stories perhaps, things which affect the 
good name of the persons. These stories may 
be the result of miserable gossip. They may 
be altogether false, gross misrepresentations. 
[257] 



^finDtnij t]^e Wav 



In this case we certainly make ourselves 
sharers in the sin of the original maligners 
if we repeat the stories to anyone. He who 
helps give wings to a scandal is himself a 
miserable scandalmonger. But supposing 
that the stories are true, what is our duty 
concerning them.? Have we not a right to 
tell others evil things about a person when 
we have verified the stories.? What gives us 
the right to do this.? What makes it our 
duty to spread an evil report even when we 
know it to be true.? Clearly, whatever the 
case may be, the Christian way to deal with 
such matters, in whatever manner they may 
have come to our ears, is to be as if we did 
not know them. 

There is still another class of things we can- 
not help knowing, which it were well if we 
would consider ourselves as not knowing. 
Sometimes we have unpleasant experiences 
with people. They speak of us injuriously 
or treat us unkindly. Sometimes the hurt 
they do us is from want of thought, not from 
want of heart. There is no intention to in- 
[258] 



a^ %i Wt m^ liJot 



jure us or to cause us trouble or pain — it is 
the result of thoughtlessness. Sometimes in- 
deed it may be an unkind spirit in those 
about us which leads them to seek to vex us. 
In either case, it is not easy to endure the 
irritation which we cannot but suffer. 
Here again there is a secret worth knowing, 
which, understood, takes away much of the 
suffering and enables us to go through the 
experience quietly and patiently. There is a 
way of forgetting such hurts, which takes 
from them in a great measure their power to 
do us real injury. A boat ploughs its way 
through the water of the silver lake, but in 
a little while the water is as smooth as ever 
again, retaining no trace of the rude cleaving. 
One would not know the glassy waters had 
ever been ruffled. If we can learn the lake's 
lesson, it will add greatly not only to the 
quiet and beauty of our lives, but also to our 
own comfort. Whatever we may suffer from 
the unkindness or thoughtlessness of others, 
or from the uncongeniality of our environ- 
ment, we shall not be disturbed or distressed. 
[259] 



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This is one of the blessings of Christian 
peace. We hide away in Christ, in the shel- 
ter of his love, in the secret of his presence, 
and there find refuge from the plottings of 
men and from the strife of tongues. The 
things which otherwise would cause us great 
suffering do not touch us. We meet them 
as though they were not. In the shelter of 
the love of Christ nothing harms us. We are 
so sustained that it is as though the trials 
had no existence. 



[260] 



jEafeing a d^ooD 0amt 



[261] 



Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 

Is the immediate jewel of their souls : 

Who steals my purse steals trash; His something, 

nothing; 

^Twas mine, His his, and has been slave to thousands ; 

But he that filches from me my good name 

Robs me of that which not enriches him 

And makes me poor indeed. 

— Shakespeare. 



[262] 



CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD 




HE name includes the char- 
acter. All that a man is 
his name stands for and 
represents. A baby has no 
character, and at first its 
name means nothing. It 
has done nothing to give it individuality in 
anyone's mind. But as the child grows to- 
ward manhood, the name every year grows to 
mean more and more. All the story of the 
childhood, the youth and the early years goes 
into it. In school and college, the boy's name 
to all who know him stands for whatever he 
is. If he is well-behaved, bright, interesting, 
with good disposition and a good record, a 
good student, gentlemanly, refined — his name 
will suggest all this wherever it is heard. If 
he is negligent in his habits, careless in his 
life, if he is rude, ungentlemanly, if he is 
untrue, resentful, quick-tempered, the men- 
[263] 



^(nDing ti^e Wav 



tion of his name will bring up all these quali- 
ties to those who know him intimately. 
The making of a name is, therefore, a matter 
of the highest importance. We are told that 
reputation is what people think about a man, 
what they suppose he is, and that character 
is what the man really is; but ultimately 
reputation and character are one. For a 
while, a man may hide his true self and may 
pass for something better than he really Is, 
but in the end character will assert itself 
through all disguises and all illusions, and 
the man's name will represent precisely what 
the man is. 

Holy Scripture tells us that a good name is 
better than precious ointment. It is the per- 
fume of the ointment that is suggested, and 
the thought is very beautiful. In a parable 
of spiritual hfe, in one of the Minor Proph- 
ets, one feature is expressed thus, "His smell 
is as Lebanon." One of Saint Paul's "what- 
soevers," in a wonderful epitome of Christly 
character is, "whatsoever things are of good 
report." There is an aroma that belongs to 
[264] 



1 



every life which is the composite product of 
the things that are said about the person 
along the years. If all that is said is good, 
favorable, commendatory of the person's 
name, the report is like sweet perfume. Some 
men live beautifully, sweetly, patiently, un- 
selfishly, helpfully, sympathetically, speak- 
ing only good words, never rash, intemperate, 
unloving words, walking among men care- 
fully, humbly, reverently; and the odor of 
their lives is like that of Mary's ointment 
which filled all the house. Other men are 
ruled by self, or by the world, or by greed, 
or by desire for pleasure; they are of the 
earth, earthy, or they are untrue, resentful, 
unloving, of hasty speech — we all know what 
the effluence of such lives is, not like gentle 
fragrance, but unsavory, of an evil odor. 
There is something very mysterious about per- 
fume. No one can describe it. You cannot 
take a photograph of it. You cannot weigh 
it. Yet it is a very essential quality of the 
flower. The same is true of that strange 
thing we call influence. Influence is the 
[265] 



finning tl^e Wav 



aroma of a life. The most important thing 
about your life is this subtle, imponderable, 
indefinable, mysterious quality of your per- 
sonality which is known as influence. This 
is really all of you that counts in its final 
impression upon other lives. No matter how 
a man may pose, how much he may profess, 
how he may assert himself — ^what kind of 
man he may claim to be — that which he really 
is, is what breathes out from his life wherever 
he is known, that which his name suggests to 
people wherever it is spoken. 
Lebanon's gardens and trees and fruits filled 
all the region round about with delicious 
fragrance. Every Christian life ought to be 
fragrant, with a smell like that of Lebanon. 
But there is only one way to make it so. 
Men gather the perfume from acres of roses 
and it fills only a little vial. Our influence, 
the perfume of our lives, is gathered from all 
the acres of our years — all that has grown 
upon those acres during all those years. If 
it is to be like the essence of ten thousand 
roses, sweet, pure, undefiled, our life must be 
[266] 



jEafei'ng a dBfooD ii^ame 

all well watched, clean, pure, holy, loving, 
true. The evil, as well as the good, is gath- 
ered, and helps to make the total of the influ- 
ence of our lives. 

We all know how easily one's influence is hurt, 
how little follies and indiscretions in one's 
conduct or behavior take away from the sweet- 
ness of one's reputation. The author of 
Ecclesiastes says, "Dead flies cause the oil of 
the perfumer to send forth an evil odor; so 
doth a little folly outweigh wisdom and hon- 
or." We need to think seriously of this mat- 
ter of dead flies. We are not always careful 
enough about keeping them out. There are 
many men, good in the general tenor of their 
lives, godly, prayerful, consistent in larger 
ways, but the perfume of whose names is ren- 
dered unsavory by little dead flies in the oint- 
ment of their common life. They are not 
careful to keep their word, they are not 
prompt in paying their debts, they are not 
watchful of their speech, they are not loyal 
in their friendships, they are indiscreet in 
their relations with others, they are wanting 
[267] 



^inDtng tl^e Wa^ 



in refinement or courtesy, they are rash in 
their speech, they are resentful — we know how 
many of these dead flies there are which cause 
the ointment of some good people's names to 
send forth an unsavory odor. 
We need to watch our Hves in the smallest 
matters if we would keep our names sweet 
wherever we are known. Influence is most 
important. It is our mightiest force for good 
or for evil. Let us keep it pure and good for 
Christ, and in order to do this let us keep 
Christ always in it. 

The end is not in this world. Our name at 
the close of earthly life enshrines the essence 
of all that men know about us. But there is 
much that is beautiful and good in a true 
and worthy life that men do not know. It is 
interesting to think of the name as at last 
including all that the person has done, all the 
influences that have ever gone forth from the 
life. We are told that in nature nothing is 
ever wasted. Matter changes its form, but 
not a particle of it is lost. Wood is con- 
sumed in the fire, and the elements of which 
[268] 



jttafefng a (BooD il^ame 

it was composed are separated — some of them 
escaping into the air in gases and some of 
them remaining in the residuum of ashes, — 
but not the smallest particle that was in the 
tree has really perished. We live our life in 
this world, our few years or many, and then 
cease to be. The places which have known 
us will know us no more% But not the small- 
est element of our life is lost. The things 
we have done, the words we have spoken, the 
influences we have sent out, all have taken 
their place in other lives and have been built 
into them like blocks of stone on the wall of 
a building. 

We may believe that as in nature so in human 
life, not the smallest particle is ever wasted. 
Many things we try to do seem to fail. At 
least, they do not realize our desire and in- 
tention. We grieve as if the eff^orts had ac- 
complished nothing. But some day we shall 
see that no true purpose ever has failed, that 
though our eff*orts may not all have realized 
what we hoped from them, yet in the unseen 
realm, where the true results of life are all 
[269] 



finding ti^e Wa^ 



gathered and treasured, we shall find all our 
hopes and dreams, all our good intentions 
that could not be fulfilled here, all our plans 
and purposes that we had not the strength 
to carry out in this world. Ofttimes we are 
defeated in our eff*orts to do good. We begin 
many things which we cannot complete. 
There is not a day when we live as well as 
we wanted to live or meant to live. We do 
no piece of work as beautifully as we wished 
and intended to do it. 

But the man whom Christ will present some 
day with exceeding joy before God will be 
the man with all the fruits and harvests of his 
life garnered, nothing lost by the way. This 
truth should give us measureless comfort as 
we think of our failures here and the drop- 
ping off^ of so many blossoms without any 
earthly fruiting. Browning puts this finely: 

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall 
exist ; 
Not its semblance^ but itself; no beauty, nor good, 
nor power 

[270] 



jHafeing a (Boon j^ame 

Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for 
the melodist 
When eternity affirms the conception of an 
hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth 
too hard. 
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in 
the sky, 
The music sent up to God by the lover and the 
bard ; 
Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by- 
and'by. 

Not all of anyone's life is gathered in this 
world in even the most fragrant name. A 
thousand good things which the man has done 
have been forgotten. Countless gentle deeds 
were wrought so quietly that no one ever 
heard of them. Then only God could know 
the things which took no form in either word 
or deed — the love, the sympathy, the gentle 
thoughtfulness, the self-denials, the prayers 
for others and for the kingdom of Christ, the 
aspirations, the desires to do good. It is only 
a little of any noble life that the world ever 
[271] 



finDfng tl^e Wa^ 



knows. But God knows all and remembers 
all, and the names of his saints will at last 
represent all the story of their lives, with 
nothing good or beautiful wanting. 



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netting '€\^inq,^ ^nn ?^ot»n 



[273] 



" What, here so soon t 

Sunset and night ? 
Why, I have work to do that needs the noon, 

And day^s broad light! 
See! On the palette, there, the colors are hut set, 

The canvas still unwet 

And it is night, 

**How sweet Hwould he, 

My work all done — 
To sit at eve, my threshold on, and see 

Stars, one by one. 
Flash into the dark heaven! Oh, happy rest! 

My folded hands, how blest 

But — His already night, ^^ 



[ 274 ] 



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOURTH 



letting Cl^fngsJ Ewn ?^ot»n 




T is easy to let things run 
down. We begin care- 
fully, but presently lapse 
into carelessness. A child's 
copy-book is apt to show 
reasonably fair following 
of the copy in the top lines, and then the 
farther down the page the worse. An old 
adage has it that a new broom sweeps clean, 
implying that as it gets older it does not do 
its work so well. This tendency from good 
to less good, from watchfulness to neglect, is 
not confined, however, to such inanimate in- 
struments as brooms. The disposition is 
human and very common, if not almost uni- 
versal. 

Eternal vigilance is the price of other things 
besides liberty. Nothing but intense watch- 
fulness will save us from the tendency to let 
things run down, whether in our personal 
[275] 



^tnDtng ti^e Wav 



habits, in our work, or in our character. We 
begin with enthusiasm and succeed well be- 
cause we do our work with zest and earnest- 
ness. For a time we keep up to our high 
standards, and then we begin to flag in our 
interest and also in our energy, and at once 
our work shows it. 

This is one of the perils of business. A mer- 
chant opens a new store. He will run it in a 
new way, with improved methods. Every- 
thing about the place is bright. The goods 
are the best the market aff*ords. The methods 
of business adopted are modem and obliging. 
The salespeople are attentive and accommo- 
dating. Everything is done promptly and in 
a way to give the fullest satisfaction. Evi- 
dently the aim of the proprietor is to make 
his store as nearly perfect as possible. For 
a time the new broom sweeps clean. Every- 
thing is kept in perfect order. The store is 
attractive and beautiful. The improved 
methods are faithfully followed. There is no 
occasion for complaint, and if mistakes occur 
they are cheerfully rectified. 
[276] 



letting Ci^ing^ Bun H^o^jon 

But after a while there is an evident lower- 
ing of the standard. The place is losing 
somewhat of its bright look. The newness 
is wearing off. There is not the same effort 
to please. The salespeople have not the old, 
enthusiastic way of waiting upon their cus- 
tomers. The goods are not always satisfac- 
tory. Complaints are frequent and do not 
receive attention. People begin to say that 
the store is running down. 
The same tendency is seen sometimes in a 
home. At the beginning everything is neat 
and tidy. Evidently the mistress looks after 
the smallest details of her housekeeping her- 
self. Not a speck of dust is seen anywhere. 
Everything is kept in the best order. All 
who come in admire the excellent taste dis- 
played and are charmed by the beautiful way 
in which the affairs of the household are ad- 
ministered. After a while, however, visitors 
begin to notice a change. The old tidiness is 
giving way to a condition of disorder and 
untidiness. Things are not kept in their 
place. The pictures are crooked on the walls. 
[277] 



{finDing tl^e Wav 



The furniture is not dusted as it used to be. 
The children are not so carefully dressed as 
they used to be. All about the house the 
lessening interest shows, too, without and 
within. The grounds are not kept neat and 
attractive as they used to be. Gates, fences, 
and outbuildings have a tumble-down appear- 
ance. Inside, walls, carpets, curtains, and 
furniture begin to have a neglected look. The 
whole air of the place has changed. The 
home is running down. 

We find the same tendency also ofttimes in 
people. It manifests itself in many ways. It 
may be in personal habits. There are those 
who used to be almost fastidious in their ap- 
pearance. Even though unable to wear the 
finest clothes, they always dressed in the best 
taste. But now signs of slovenliness show 
that there has been a relaxing of the old care- 
fulness. There is not the same neatness and 
winningness as of old, not the same attention 
to personal appearance. In little ways the 
change is noted at first, but it gradually be- 
comes more marked. 

[278] 



letting Ci^ingjs Mun ?^otr)n 

In people's personal lives, too, the same ten- 
dency often becomes apparent. We are apt 
to allow ourselves to slacken our diKgence in 
our work. Especially is this true when our 
tasks are the same over and over, the old 
routine every day. It is hard to keep up the 
zest and interest with this everlasting repeti- 
tion — in the home, in the office, or in the shop. 
It is very easy after doing the same things a 
thousand times, to do them a little less pains- 
takingly. In the care of the body, too, great 
watchfulness is required to avoid becoming 
neglectful. An old man of ninety said it had 
not taken half the energy for him to do the 
great tasks and to meet the large responsi- 
bilities of his long life that it had for him to 
brush his teeth three times a day, year after 
year, and never once neglect it nor do it care- 
lessly. It requires an unusual energy and 
persistence for a mechanic to do his work as 
conscientiously year after year as he did at 
the beginning. 

In the moralities it is not less difficult to keep 

up to tone. We set out determined to make 

[279] 



finding tl^e Wav 



the most of our life. We fix our standard 
high. We intend to Hve in all ways worthily, 
pleasing God. We begin well, and for a time 
are conscientious and faithful. We resist 
temptation and are loyal to our Master in the 
smallest things. We are diligent in the per- 
formance of all our duties. We cultivate the 
spirit of love in our relations with others, and 
strive to be patient, thoughtful, kind, helpful 
to all about us. We endeavor to live for the 
higher things, putting character above pleas- 
ure or self-indulgence, and keeping ourselves 
unspotted from the world. 
But too often we grow weary in well-doing 
and slacken our diligence. We are not so 
conscientious as we were about our daily 
prayer and Bible-reading. We are more 
easily interrupted or hindered in our devo- 
tional habits. We keep a less vigilant watch 
over our tongues, and sometimes speak words 
that are not true, or that are unkind and un- 
charitable. We let the reins slip from our 
hands, allowing our temper to run wild, hurt- 
ing gentle lives and bringing shame upon 
[280] 



letting Ci^tngjs Mun J^otwn 



'^m ourselves. We grow remiss in our religious 
"j^m activities, dropping tasks and withdrawing 
^B from responsibilities. It is easy thus to allow 
our lives to run down in their moralities. The 
only way to prevent this unhappy tendency 
in any department of life is to watch against 
the smallest beginnings of neglect or inatten- 
tion. Our lives must be kept up to tone at 
every point. The musician has his piano 
tuned frequently, that its strings may not 
fall below concert pitch. An artist kept some 
highly colored stones in his studio and said 
it was to keep his eye up to tone. We need 
continually to keep before us high ideals, 
lofty standards, for if our ideals and stand- 
ards are lowered, our attainments will be 
lowered too. 

One of the effects of mingling with people is 
that we allow ourselves to be influenced by 
their example and to become tolerant of im- 
perfection, of failure, of neglect in ourselves. 
The Christian needs always to keep Christ 
before his eye, that by his perfect life he 
may be inspired to do his best. One of the 
[281] 



finDmg ti^e Wa^ 



reasons for daily Bible reading is that by its 
heavenly teachings we may be kept continu- 
ally in mind of what we ought to be and 
what we ought to do. 

''And often for your comfort you will read the guide 

and chart ; 
It has wisdom for the mind and sweet solace for 

the heart ; 
It will serve you as a mentor j it will guide you sure 

and straight 
All the time that you will journey, he the ending 

soon or late/^ 



[282] 



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